t of the country was
familiar to him and in addition his directions were so explicit that he
could not miss the way.

The four divisions of the army were in fairly close touch, but in a
country of forests and many waters Northern scouts might come between,
and he rode with caution, his hand ever near the pistol in his belt.
The midday sun however clouded as the afternoon passed on. The thickets
and forests grew more dense. From the distance came now and then the
faint, sweet call of a trumpet, but everything was hidden from sight by
the dense tangle of the Wilderness, a wilderness as wild and dangerous as
any in which Henry Ware had ever fought. How it all came back to him!
Almost exactly a year ago he had ridden into it with Jackson and here the
armies were gathering again.

Imagination, fancy, always so strong in him, leaped into vivid life.
The year had not passed and he was riding to meet Stonewall Jackson,
who was somewhere ahead, preparing for his great curve about Hooker and
the lightning stroke at Chancellorsville. Rabbits sprang out of the
undergrowth and fled away before his horse's hoofs. In the lonely
wilderness, which nevertheless had little to offer to the hunter, birds
chattered from every tree. Small streams flowed slowly between dense
walls of bushes. Here and there in the protection of the thickets wild
flowers were in early bloom.

It was spring, fresh spring everywhere, but the bushes and the grass
alike were tinged with red for Harry. The strange mental illusion that
he was riding to Chancellorsville remained with him and he did not seek
to shake it off. He almost expected to see Old Jack ahead on a hill,
bent over a little, and sitting on Little Sorrel, with the old slouch hat
drawn over his eyes. They had talked of the ghost of Jackson leading
them in the Wilderness. He shivered. Could it be so? All the time he
knew it was an illusion, but he permitted it to cast its spell over him,
as one who dreams knowingly.

And Harry was dreaming back. Old Jack, the earlier of his two heroes,
was leading them. He foresaw the long march through the thickets of the
Wilderness, Stonewall forming the line of battle in the deep roads late
in the evening, almost in sight of Hooker's camp, the sudden rush of his
brigades and then the terrible battle far into the night.

He shook himself. It was uncanny. The past was the past. Dreams
were thin and vanished stuff. Once more he was in the presen