ing to go into
another fight.

"Hello, Jake," said his comrades, "awful glad to see you back. Now
you'll have a chance to get your revenge on those fellows. There'll be
enough of us with you to see that you get a fair fight."

"To the devil with their revenge and a fair fight," said Jake to
himself. That evening he strolled around to the headquarters tent, and
said to the commander of the regiment:

"Colonel, the doctor seems to think that I'm fit to return to duty, but
I don't feel all right yet. I've a numbness in my legs, so that I kin
hardly walk sometims. It's my old rheumatics, stirred up by sleeping
out in the night air. I hear that the man who's been drivin' the
headquarters wagin has had to go to the hospital. I want to be at
something, even if I can't do duty in the ranks, and I'd like to take
his place till him and me gets well."

"All right, Sergeant. You can have the place as long as you wish, or any
other that I can give you. I can't do too much for so brave a man."

So it happened that in the next fight the regiment was not gratified by
any thrilling episodes of sanguinary, single-handed combats, between the
indomitable Jake and bloodthirsty Rebels.

He had deferred his "revenge" indefinitely.

Chapter IV. Disgrace.

For of fortune's sharp adversitie
The worst kind of infortune is this:
A man that hath been in prosperitie,
And it remember when it passed is.
-- Chaucer.

Harry Glen's perfect self-complacency did not molt a feather when the
victors returned to camp flushed with their triumph, which, in the eyes
of those inexperienced three-months men, had the dimensions of Waterloo.
He did not know that in proportion as they magnified their exploit, so
was the depth of their contempt felt for those of their comrades who had
declined to share the perils and the honors of the expedition with them.
He was too thoroughly satisfied with himself and his motives to even
imagine that any one could have just cause for complaint at anything he
chose to do.

This kept him from understanding or appreciating the force of the biting
innuendoes and sarcasms which were made to his very face; and he had
stood so aloof from all, that there was nobody who cared to take the
friendly trouble of telling him how free the camp conversation was
making with his reputation.

He could not help, however, understanding that in some way he had
lost caste wit