pring.

Here men who an hour or two ago had been striving their utmost to kill
one another were gathered together and spoke as friends. When one went
away another took his place. No thought of strife occurred to them,
although there would be plenty of it on the morrow. They even jested
and foes complimented foes on their courage. Harry and Dalton drank,
and paused a few moments to hear the talk.

The moon rode high, and it has looked down upon no more extraordinary
scene than this, the enemies drinking together in friendship at the
spring, and all about them the stony ramparts of the hills, bristling
with cannon, and covered with riflemen, ready for a red dawn, and the
fields and ridges on which thirty thousand had already fallen, dead or
wounded.

"Another meeting, Mr. Kenton," said a man who had been bent down
drinking. As he rose the moonlight shone full upon his face and Harry
was startled. And yet it was not strange that he should be there.
The face revealed to Harry was one of uncommon power. It seemed to him
that the features had grown more massive. The powerful chin and the
large, slightly curved nose showed indomitable spirit and resolution.
The face was tanned almost to blackness by all kinds of weather.
Harry would not have known him at first, had it not been for his voice.

"We do meet in unexpected places and at unexpected times, Mr. Shepard,"
he said.

"I'm not merely trying to be polite, when I tell you that I'm glad to
find you alive. You and I have seen battles, but never another like
this."

"And I can truthfully welcome you, Mr. Shepard, as an old acquaintance
and no real enemy."

It was an impulse but a noble one that made the two, different in years
and so unlike, shake hands with a firm and honest grip.

"Your army will come again in the morning," said Shepard, not as a
question, but as a statement of fact.

"Can you doubt it?"

"No, I don't, but to-morrow night, Mr. Kenton, you will recall what I
told you at our first meeting in Montgomery more than two years ago."

"You said that we could not win."

"And you cannot. It was never possible. Oh, I know that you've won
great victories against odds! You've done better than anybody could
have expected, but you had genius to help you, while we were led by
mediocrity in the saddle. But you have reached your zenith. Mark how
the Union veterans fought to-day. They're as brave and resolute as you
are, and we have the position