spoke of his great strength and purity, and of other things
which men hold best in men.

And now they were riding with the sun in their eyes, and white dust
rolled up from the swift feet of horses and men. Wild roses and new-mown
grass filled the air with delightful fragrance, and such fields as were
uncut blazed with daisies and buttercups. Over the trimmed lawns about
homesteads yellow dandelions shone like stars in a green sky. Men,
women, and children left their occupations, and stood with open mouths
and wide eyes to see the soldiers pass. The sun rose higher and the day
became most hot, but steadily, unflinchingly as the ticking of a clock,
the swift, bleeding, valiant feet of the Sixth Army Corps stepped off
the miles. And the men stretched their ears to hear the mumbled distant
thunder of artillery--that voice of battle which says so much and tells
so little to those far off. The Sixth Corps felt that it was expected to
decide a battle upon Northern soil for the North, and marching in
that buoyant hope, left scarcely a man, broken with fatigue and
disappointment, among the wild flowers by the side of the way.

If you have ever ridden from Cairo to the Pyramids you will remember
that at five miles' distance they look as huge as at a hundred yards,
and that it is not until you actually touch them with your hand that you
even begin to realize how wonderfully huge they really are. It was
so with the thunders of Gettysburg. They sounded no louder, and they
connoted no more to the column now in the immediate vicinage of the
battle, than they had to its far-distant ears. But presently the
column halted behind a circle of hills, and beheld white smoke pouring
heavenward as if a fissure had opened in the earth and was giving forth
steam. And they beheld in the heavens themselves tiny, fleecy white
clouds and motionless rings, and they knew that shells were bursting and
men falling upon the slopes beyond the hills.

A frenzy of eagerness seized upon the tired feet, and they pressed
upward, lightly, like dancers' feet. Straps creaked upon straining
breasts, and sweat ran in bubbles. Then the head of the column reached
the ridge of a hill, and its leaders saw through smarting eyes a great
horseshoe of sudden death.

XXXII

That morning Peter Manners had received a letter, but he had not had a
chance to open and read it. It was a letter that belonged next to his
heart, as he judged by the writing, and next to hi