ed hers tight, and Crittenden passed, by and by, into
sleep. The doctor looked at him closely.

He had just made the rounds of the tents outside, and he was marvelling.
There were men who had fought bravely, who had stood wounds and the
surgeon's knife without a murmur; who, weakened and demoralized by fever
now, were weak and puling of spirit, and sly and thievish; who would
steal the food of the very comrades for whom a little while before they
had risked their lives--men who in a fortnight had fallen from a high
plane of life to the pitiful level of brutes. Only here and there was an
exception. This man, Crittenden, was one. When sane, he was gentle,
uncomplaining, considerate. Delirious, there was never a plaint in his
voice; never a word passed his lips that his own mother might not hear;
and when his lips closed, an undaunted spirit kept them firm.

"Aren't you tired?"

The nurse shook her head.

"Then you had better stay where you are; his case is pretty serious.
I'll do your work for you."

The nurse nodded and smiled. She was tired and worn to death, but she
sat as she was till dawn came over the sea, for the sake of the girl,
whose fresh young face she saw above the sick man's heart. And she knew
from the face that the other woman would have watched just that way for
her.

XIII

The thunder of big guns, Cervera's doom, and truce at the trenches. A
trying week of hot sun, cool nights, tropical rains, and fevers. Then a
harmless little bombardment one Sunday afternoon--that befitted the day;
another week of heat and cold and wet and sickness. After that, the
surrender--and the fierce little war was over.

Meantime, sick and wounded were homeward bound, and of the Crittendens
Bob was the first to reach Canewood. He came in one morning, hungry and
footsore, but with a swagger of importance that he had well earned.

He had left his Young Captain Basil at Old Point Comfort, he said, where
the boy, not having had enough of war, had slipped aboard a transport
and gone off with the Kentucky Legion for Porto Rico--the unhappy Legion
that had fumed all summer at Chickamauga--and had hoisted sail for Porto
Rico, without daring to look backward for fear it should be wigwagged
back to land from Washington.

Was Basil well?

"Yas'm. Young Cap'n didn' min' dat little bullet right through his neck
no mo'n a fly-bite. Nothin' gwine to keep dat boy back."

They had let him out of the hospital, or, rather,