waiting in silence to receive orders, too, Dick supposed.

The lad withdrew hastily, but driven by an overmastering curiosity,
and knowing that he was doing no harm, he turned back and watched for a
little space beside a bush.

The flame of the candle wavered under the wind, and sometimes the light
shone full upon the face of Thomas. It was the same face that Dick had
first beheld when he carried the dispatches to him in Kentucky. He was
calm, inscrutable at this, the most desperate crisis the Union cause
ever knew in the west. Dick could not see that his hand trembled a
particle as he wrote, although lieutenant and general alike knew that
they would soon be attacked by a superior force, flushed with all the
high enthusiasm of victory. And lieutenant and general alike also knew
that their supreme commander, Rosecrans, was no genius like Lee or
Jackson, who could set numbers at naught, and choose time and place to
suit themselves. Only stubborn courage to fight and die could avail.

But Dick drew courage from the strong, thick figure sitting there so
impassively and apparently impervious to alarm. When he quit writing
and began to give verbal orders, he spoke in even tones, in which no
one could detect a trace of excitement. When the name, "The Rock of
Chickamauga," became general, Dick remembered that night and knew how
well it was deserved.

Thomas gave his last order and his generals went to their commands. Dick
slipped back to his regiment, and lay down, but again could not sleep.

He waited in painful anxiety for the day. He had never before been
in such a highly nervous state, not at Shiloh, nor Stone River, nor
anywhere else. In those battles the chances were with the Union, but
here they were against it. He recognized that once more, save for
Thomas, the North had been outgeneraled. The army of Rosecrans had
marched from Chattanooga directly upon the positions chosen by Bragg,
where he was awaiting them with superior numbers. And the Confederate
government in the East had been quick enough to seize the opportunity
and quick enough to send the stalwart fighter, Longstreet, and his corps
to help close down the trap.

He wondered with many a painful throbbing of the heart what the dawn
would bring, and, unable to keep still any longer, he rose and went to
the brow of the low hill, behind which they lay. Colonel Winchester was
there walking through the scrub and trying to pick out something in
the opposing fore