blanket. He stared for a
while at the leaves overhead, moving in a heraldic wind of the day.

The distance was splintering and blaring with the noise of fighting.
There was in the sound an expression of a deadly persistency, as if it
had not begun and was not to cease.

About him were the rows and groups of men that he had dimly seen the
previous night. They were getting a last draught of sleep before the
awakening. The gaunt, careworn features and dusty figures were made
plain by this quaint light at the dawning, but it dressed the skin of
the men in corpselike hues and made the tangled limbs appear pulseless
and dead. The youth started up with a little cry when his eyes first
swept over this motionless mass of men, thick-spread upon the ground,
pallid, and in strange postures. His disordered mind interpreted the
hall of the forest as a charnel place. He believed for an instant that
he was in the house of the dead, and he did not dare to move lest these
corpses start up, squalling and squawking. In a second, however, he
achieved his proper mind. He swore a complicated oath at himself. He
saw that this somber picture was not a fact of the present, but a mere
prophecy.

He heard then the noise of a fire crackling briskly in the cold air,
and, turning his head, he saw his friend pottering busily about a small
blaze. A few other figures moved in the fog, and he heard the hard
cracking of axe blows.

Suddenly there was a hollow rumble of drums. A distant bugle sang
faintly. Similar sounds, varying in strength, came from near and far
over the forest. The bugles called to each other like brazen
gamecocks. The near thunder of the regimental drums rolled.

The body of men in the woods rustled. There was a general uplifting of
heads. A murmuring of voices broke upon the air. In it there was much
bass of grumbling oaths. Strange gods were addressed in condemnation
of the early hours necessary to correct war. An officer's peremptory
tenor rang out and quickened the stiffened movement of the men. The
tangled limbs unraveled. The corpse-hued faces were hidden behind
fists that twisted slowly in the eye sockets.

The youth sat up and gave vent to an enormous yawn. "Thunder!" he
remarked petulantly. He rubbed his eyes, and then putting up his hand
felt carefully of the bandage over his wound. His friend, perceiving
him to be awake, came from the fire. "Well, Henry, ol' man, how do yeh
feel this mornin'?" h