regret to concede, but nobly sure to do his soldierly duty as
soon as he should awake.

Stumbling wearily blanketward, Wallis found his Major and regimental
commander, the genial and gallant Gahogan, slumbering in a peace like
that of the just. He stretched himself anear, put out his hand to touch
his sabre and revolver, drew his caped great-coat over him, moved once
to free his back of a root or pebble, glanced languidly at a single
struggling star, thought for an instant of his far-away mother, turned
his head with a sigh and slept. In the morning he was to fight, and
perhaps to die; but the boyish veteran was too seasoned, and also too
tired, to mind that; he could mind but one thing--nature's pleading for
rest.

In the iron-gray dawn, while the troops were falling dimly and
spectrally into line, and he was mounting his horse to be ready for
orders, he remembered Gildersleeve's drunken tale concerning the
commandant, and laughed aloud. But turning his face toward brigade
headquarters (a sylvan region marked out by the branches of a great
oak), he was surprised to see a strange officer, a fair young man in
captain's uniform, riding slowly toward it.

"Is that the boy's brother?" he said to himself; and in the next instant
he had forgotten the whole subject; it was time to form and present the
regiment.

Quietly and without tap of drum the small, battle-worn battalions filed
out of their bivouacs into the highway, ordered arms and waited for
the word to march. With a dull rumble the field-pieces trundled slowly
after, and halted in rear of the infantry. The cavalry trotted off
circuitously through the fields, emerged upon a road in advance and
likewise halted, all but a single company, which pushed on for half a
mile, spreading out as it went into a thin line of skirmishers.

Meanwhile a strange interview took place near the great oak which had
sheltered brigade headquarters. As the unknown officer, whom Wallis had
noted, approached it, Col. Waldron was standing by his horse ready
to mount. The commandant was a man of medium size, fairly handsome in
person and features, and apparently about twenty-eight years of age.
Perhaps it was the singular breadth of his forehead which made the lower
part of his face look so unusually slight and feminine. His eyes were
dark hazel, as clear, brilliant, and tender as a girl's, and brimming
full of a pensiveness which seemed both loving and melancholy. Few
persons, at all event