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Let her go to the Post-Quartermaster and select a cow from his herd. Yesterday's operations gave the following total yield: Thirty 'contrabands, eighteen horses, eleven cattle, ten saddles and bridles, and one new army-wagon. At this rate we shall soon be self-supporting cavalry.
It finally came to light that the sutler of some regiment at Helena had induced the post-quartermaster at Cairo to believe that the troops stood in urgent need of bay rum for the purpose of anointing their hair, and thereupon he obtained permission to include several boxes of the stuff in his sutler supplies.
The young ladies quailed, the train jerked like several collisions, the bell began tardily to clang, and my steed whirled, cleared a packing case, whirled again, and stood facing the train, his eyes blazing, his nostrils flapping, not half so much frightened as insulted. The post-quartermaster waved to the ladies and they to us.
There was an older story about him, to the effect that, when a lieutenant in the army, he had been made post-quartermaster at some little frontier garrison, and that his accounts and returns got into such confusion that after several pretty sharp reminders the quartermaster-general notified him, as a final terror, that he would send a special officer and subject him and his papers to a severe scrutiny.
He kept me with him at Hazlehurst for two days, to help him and the post-quartermaster get everything ready to be moved and saved if our cavalry should be driven east of the Jackson Railroad. But it was not, and by and by we were sundered and I went and became at length in practical and continuous reality one of Ferry's scouts minus Ferry.
I inquired if he was the post-quartermaster here. He was. "Ain't you Major Harper's quartermaster-sergeant?" he asked. "I am his clerk." In the car a flash of joy and then great decorum. As he handed me a writing he glowed kindly. It proved to be from Major Harper; a requisition upon this officer for shoes and clothing; not for a brigade, regiment or company, but for me alone, from hat to shoes.
"Telegraph? My dear boy, we came but ten miles an hour, but we outran our despatch!" Now they had telegraphed again, to Brookhaven, and thanks to the post-quartermaster, were going down there at once on this train. While this was being told something else was going on. The youngest niece, Camille, had put herself entirely out of sight.
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