"It is, Miss Dangerfield," replied the colonel politely, "and you can see their pickets occasionally, but they have been drawn back from the creek, and I apprehend no immediate advance."
"No advance! Who are we to wait for them to offer battle? Who are we to play bridge and wait upon the pleasure of a cowardly enemy?" and Jerry gazed upon the furious Ardmore with admiration, as he roared at the officers, who stood holding their caps deferentially before the daughter of their commander-in-chief. Ardmore, it was clear, they did not take very seriously, a fact which she inwardly resented.
"I don't think it would be quite fair," said the colonel mildly, "to force issues to-day."
"Not force issues!" yelled Ardmore. "With your brave sons of our Old North State, not force battle! In the name of the constitution, I ask you, why not?"
"For the reason," replied the colonel, "that the South Carolina troops ate heavily of green apples last night in an orchard over there by their camp, and they have barely enough men to maintain their pickets this morning. These, you can see, they have withdrawn a considerable distance from the creek."
"Then tell me why they have been firing upon our lines? Why have they been permitted to shoot at our helpless and unresisting men if they are not ready for war?"
"They were not shooting at our men, Mr. Ardmore. Their pickets are very tired from loss of sleep, and they were trying to keep awake by shooting at a buzzard that hung over a field yonder, where there is, our scouts inform us, a dead calf lying in one of your pastures."
"They shall have better meat! Buzzards shall eat the whole state of South Carolina before night! Colonel, I order you to prepare at once to move your troops across that creek."
"I regret to say, sir, that we have no pontoons!"
"Pontoons! Pontoons! What, by the shade of Napoleon, do you want with pontoons when you have legs? Again, sir, I order you to advance your men!"
It was at this crisis that Jerry lifted her chin a trifle and calmly addressed the reluctant colonel.
"Colonel Daubenspeck, in my father's name, I order you to throw your troops across the Raccoon!"
A moment later the clear notes of the bugle rose above the splash and bubble of the creek. There was no opportunity for a grand onward sweep; it must be a scramble for the southern shore over the rocks and fallen timber in that mad torrent.