e you Colonel Craig's regiment?"

"Yes. We got it, too. Holy Mother--we got it f'r fair!"

"Is your Colonel all right?"

"Yes. Steve--his son--corporal, 10th Company--was hit."

"What!"

"Yes, sir. Plumb through the collar-bone. He was one of the first
to get it. I was turrible sorry for his father--fine old boy!--and
he looked like he'd drop dead hisself--but, by gosh, friend, when
the stretcher took Steve to the rear the old man jest sot them
clean-cut jaws o' his'n, an' kep' his gold-wired gig-lamps to the
front. An' when the time come, he sez in his ca'm, pleasant way:
'Boys,' sez he, 'we're agoin' in. It's a part of the job,' sez he,
'that has got to be done thorough. So,' sez he, 'we'll jest mosey
along kind o' quick steppin' now, and we'll do our part like we
al'us does do it. For'rd--mar-r-rch!'"

Berkley sat still, hands clasped over his knees, thinking of
Stephen, and of Celia, and of the father out yonder somewhere amid
the smoke.

"Gawd," said the zouave, "you got a dirty jab on your cocanut,
didn't you?"

The bandage had slipped, displaying the black scab of the scarcely
healed wound; and Berkley absently replaced it.

"That'll ketch the girls," observed the zouave with conviction.
"Damn it, I've only got a sprained ankle to show my girl."

"The war's not over," said Berkley indifferently. Then he got up,
painfully, from the grass, exchanged adieux with the zouave, and
wandered off toward the hospital to seek for news of Colonel Arran.

It appeared that the surgeons had operated, and had sent the
Colonel a mile farther to the rear, where a temporary hospital had
been established in a young ladies' seminary. And toward this
Berkley set out across the fields, the sound of the battle dinning
heavily in his aching cars.

As he walked he kept a sullen eye out for his stolen horse, never
expecting to see him, and it was with a savage mixture of surprise
and satisfaction that he beheld him, bestridden by two dirty
malingerers from a New York infantry regiment who rode on the
snaffle with difficulty and objurgations and reproached each other
for their mutual discomfort.

How they had escaped the Provost he did not know; how they escaped
absolute annihilation they did not comprehend; for Berkley seized
the bridle, swung the horse sharply, turning them both out of the
saddle; then, delivering a swift kick apiece, as they lay cursing,
he mounted and rode forward amid enthusiastic approval