sun. Silent and reverent they stand in their rough campaign
garb. The escort of infantry "rests on arms;" the others bow their
uncovered heads, and it is the voice of the veteran colonel that, in
accents trembling with sympathy and emotion, renders the last tribute
to fallen comrades and lifts to heaven the prayers for the dead. Then
see! The mourning groups break away from the southern side; the brown
rifles of the escort are lifted in air; the listening rocks resound to
the sudden ring of the flashing volley; the soft, low, wailing good-by
of the trumpets goes floating up the vale, and soon the burial-parties
are left alone to cover the once familiar faces with the earth to which
the soldier must return, and the comrades who are left, foot and
dragoon, come marching, silent, back to camp.

And when the old regiment begins its homeward journey, leaving the
well-won field to the fast-arriving commands and bidding hearty soldier
farewell to the cavalry comrades whose friendship they gained in the
front of a savage foe, the company that was the first to land its fire
in the fight goes back with diminished numbers and under command of its
second lieutenant. Alas, poor Jerrold!

There is a solemn little group around the camp-fire the night before
they go. Frank Armitage, flat on his back, with a rifle-bullet through
his thigh, but taking things very coolly for all that, is having a quiet
conference with his colonel. Such of the wounded of the entire command
as are well enough to travel by easy stages to the railway go with
Maynard and the regiment in the morning, and Sergeant McLeod, with his
sabre-arm in a sling, is one of these. But the captain of Company B must
wait until the surgeons can lift him along in an ambulance and all fear
of fever has subsided. To the colonel and Chester he hands the note
which is all that is left to comfort poor Nina Beaubien. To them he
reads aloud the note addressed to himself:

"You are right in saying that the matter of my possession of that
photograph should be explained. I seek no longer to palliate my action.
In making that puppyish bet with Sloat I _did_ believe that I could
induce Miss Renwick or her mother to let me have a copy; but I was
refused so positively that I knew it was useless. This simply added to
my desire to have one. The photographer was the same that took the
pictures and furnished the albums for our class at graduation, and I,
more than any one, had been instrumenta