He extinguished the flaming torch in the ashes banked in the chimney-place in the larger room, and again the two brothers laid themselves down to rest, with their feet on the hearth. Once more the silence of the night, the vague crumbling of the ash, the measured sound of the sentry's tread. There was no echo of the passing of time--but how leaden-footed! How slowly fared the night! How motionless lay those cloaked figures, each with his head on his saddle! "Watt," her voice came plaintively out of the gloom. "I'm scared!" This time, though all stirred, they did not rise. "Pshaw! Scared of what?" She did not answer. Only after a time she queried irrelevantly, "Can mice climb?" "Did you see that in a book, too?" asked Watt. "They can only climb under certain conditions," opined Hugh, sleepily. "But they'd scorn to intrude on a lady in a hammock, Sister," declared George. "Oh, hush, George!" said Jim, authoritatively. "No mouse can get up there, Sister. Why don't you go to sleep?" "I can't," said Millie Fisher, plaintively. "I saw so many awful things to-day!" "You had better think about mice," said Watt, quickly, to effect a diversion. "They are minute, but monstrous. Just imagine how one could scale the wall, and taking its tail under its left arm spring across to your hammock, and run along, say, the nape of your neck! Oh-h-h! wouldn't that be just _aw-w-wful_!" "Oh, hush, Watt!" said Jim. "Just compose your mind, Sister. Shut your eyes and think about nothing." "Think how nearly you scared a gallant captain of artillery out of his seven senses to-day," suggested Watt, anew. "I thought Jim would get run over by the gun-carriages and the caissons, whether or no. He was so scatter-brained, and white, and wild-eyed, and blundering--nearly under the horses' feet." Millie Fisher gave a pleased little laugh. "Was he? Was he, truly?" "He was, for a fact. Few captains of artillery have the opportunity to make their own sister a target in a regular knock-down-and-drag-out fight. I thought I was going to have to support the gentleman off the field of battle. He couldn't stand up for a while." "How funny!" exclaimed Millie Fisher, delightedly. "Just _too_ funny." She shifted her position in the hammock, closed her eyes, and when she opened them again the sun was flaring into the open door and window of the large room, and all the five Fisher brothers were up and fully accoutred for the duty of the service, and she was requested to get out of the hammock that it might again be turned into a cloak.