, with a note to be relayed to Prescott,
to tell the general of his ill success and his evil suspicions, and the
chief being himself out a-hunting, what did his chief of staff do but
order the Newly Arrived down to Almy to meet the home-coming party and
see for himself--and his general!

And of all men chosen to meddle in matters concerning "Hefty" Harris,
perhaps the latest suitable, in some ways, was his classmate and
comrade lieutenant, though in different arms of the service--Hal
Willett of "The Lost and Strayed," so called from the fact that they
had been sent to desert wilds in '65, scattered over three territories,
and despite some hard fighting and many hard knocks, had never, said
their detractors, been heard from since.

Rivals they had been in cadet days and more than one pursuit. Rivals
they still were in the field of arms, for the name Harris had won for
himself in Arizona Willett had matched in the Columbia, and now, fresh
from the ill-starred campaign of the Lava Beds, was one of the few men
to get something better than hard knocks, censure and criticism. Until
the previous evening, not since the day they parted at West Point had
they set eyes one on the other, and, knowing nothing of what had gone
before and never dreaming of what would come to pass, a benighted
bureau officer had sent the one down to find out what was the matter
with the other.

And thereby hangs this tale.

For, as luck would have it, there was even then stationed in that
far-away land a luckless lieutenant-colonel of infantry who had started
with good prospects in the Civil War, had early been given command of a
brigade of volunteers and within the month had had his raw concourse of
undrilled, undisciplined levies swept from under him in the first
fierce onset at Shiloh. What else could have been expected of men to
whom arms had been issued but ten days before, and who had not yet
learned which end to bite from the cartridge? Hurled from his terrified
horse, the general had been picked up senseless, to see no more of
fighting until Stone's River, eight months later, where with a more
seasoned command the same thing happened. And still he persisted, when
well of an ugly wound, and, while juniors in years and length of
service were now heading corps and divisions, with double stars on
their shoulders, and he had to begin again with a brigade, he got into
line for Chickamauga with his usual luck just within range of the fatal
gap le