o others; all that
others might be to him. Every enjoyment of the past, every happy
possibility of the future took on a more entrancing roseatenesss.

Could he give all this up, and die there on the mountain top, in this
dull, brutal, unheroic fashion, in the filthy mud and dreary rain, with
no one to note or care whether he acted courageously or otherwise?

It did not seem that he was expected to fling his life away like a dumb
brute entering the reeking shambles. His youth and abilities had been
given him for some other purpose. Again palsying fear and ignoble
selfishness tugged at his heart-strings, and he felt all his carefully
cultivated resolutions weakening.

"A Sergeant must be left in command of the men guarding this property,"
said the Colonel. "The Captain of Company A will detail one for that
duty."

Captain Bennett glanced from one to another of his five Sergeants.
Harry's heart gave a swift leap, with hope that he might be ORDERED to
remain behind. Then the blood crimsoned his cheeks, for the first time
since the sound of the firing struck his ears; he felt that every eye in
the Company was upon him, and that his ignoble desire had been read by
all in his look of expectancy. Shame came to spur up his faltering will.
He set his teeth firmly, pulled the tompion out of his gun, and flung
it away disdainfully as if he would never need it again, blew into the
muzzle to see if the tube was clear, and wiped off the lock with a fine
white handkerchief--one of the relics of his by-gone elegance--which he
drew from the breast of his blouse.

"Sergeant Glan--Sergeant Glancey will remain," said the Captain
peremptorily. Glancey, the Captain knew, was the only son and support of
a widowed mother.

"Now, boys," said the Colonel in tones that rang like bugle notes, "the
time has come for us to strike a blow for the Union, and for the fame of
the dear old Buckeye State. I need not exhort you to do your duty like
men; I know you too well to think that any such words of mine are at all
necessary. Forward! QUICK TIME! MARCH!"

The mountain sides rang with the answering cheers from a thousand
throats.

The noise of the battle on the distant crest was at first in separate
bursts of sound, as regiment after regiment came into position and
opened fire. The intervals between these bursts had disappeared, and it
had now become a steady roar.

A wild mob came rushing backward from the front.

"My God, our men are whipp