While Dick still slept, the minds of men were at work. Pope's army, hitherto separated, was now called together by a battle. Troops from every direction were pouring upon the common center. The little army which had fought so gallantly the day before now amounted to only one-fourth of the whole. McDowell, Sigel and many other generals joined Pope, who, with the strange faculty of always seeing his enemy too small, while McClellan always saw him too large, began to feed upon his own sanguine anticipations, and to regard as won the great victory that he intended to win. He sent telegrams to Washington announcing that his triumph at Cedar Run was only the first of a series that his army would soon achieve. It was late in the afternoon when Dick awoke, and he was amazed to see that the sun was far down the western sky. But he rubbed his eyes and, remembering, knew that he had slept at least ten hours. He looked down at the relaxed figures of Warner and Pennington on either side of him. They still slumbered soundly, but he decided that they had slept long enough. “Here, you,” he exclaimed, seizing Warner by the collar and dragging him to a sitting position, “look at the sun! Do you realize that you've lost a day out of your bright young life?” Then he seized Pennington by the collar also and dragged him up. Both Warner and Pennington yawned prodigiously. “If I've lost a day, and it would seem that I have, then I'm glad of it,” replied Warner. “I could afford to lose several in such a pleasant manner. I suppose a lot of Stonewall Jackson's men were shooting at me while I slept, but I was lucky and didn't know about it.” “You talk too long,” said Pennington. “That comes of your having taught school. You could talk all day to boys younger than yourself, and they were afraid to answer back.” “Shut up, both of you,” said Dick. “Here comes the sergeant, and I think from his look he has something to say worth hearing.” Sergeant Whitley had cleansed the blood and dust from his face, and a handkerchief tied neatly around his head covered up the small wound there. He looked trim and entirely restored, both mentally and physically. “Well, sergeant,” said Dick ingratiatingly, “if any thing has happened in this army you're sure to know of it. We'd have known it ourselves, but we had an important engagement with Morpheus, a world away, and we had to keep it. Now what is the news?” “I don't know who Morpheus is,” replied the sergeant, laughing, “but I'd guess from your looks that he is another name for sleep. There is no news of anything big happenin'. We've got a great army here, and Jackson remains near our battlefield of yesterday. I should say that we number at least fifty thousand men, or about twice the rebels.” “Then why don't we march against 'em at once?” The sergeant shrugged his shoulders. It was not for him to tell why generals did not do things. “I think,” he said, “that we're likely to stay here a day or two.”