This was the end of the flag for which he was ready to give his
life three days ago. With his youth, his strength, his very bread thrown
into the scale, he sat now with wrecked body and blighted mind, and saw his
future turn to decay before his manhood was well begun. Where was the old
buoyant spirit he had brought with him into the fight? Gone forever, and in
its place he found his maimed and trembling hands, and limbs weakened by
starvation as by long fever. His virile youth was wasted in the slow
struggle, his energy was sapped drop by drop; and at the last he saw
himself burned out like the battle-fields, where the armies had closed and
opened, leaving an impoverished and ruined soil. He had given himself for
four years, and yet when the end came he had not earned so much as an empty
title to take home for his reward. The consciousness of a hard-fought fight
was but the common portion of them all, from the greatest to the humblest
on either side. As for him he had but done his duty like his comrades in
the ranks, and by what right of merit should he have raised himself above
their heads? Yes, this was the end, and he meant to face it standing with
his back against the wall.

Down the road a line of Federal privates came driving an ox before them,
and he eyed them gravely, wondering in a dazed way if the taste of victory
had gone to their heads. Then he turned slowly, for a voice was speaking at
his side, and a tall man in a long blue coat was building a little fire
hard by.

"Your stomach's pretty empty, ain't it, Johnny?" he inquired, as he laid
the sticks crosswise with precise movements, as if he had measured the
length of each separate piece of wood. He was lean and rawboned, with a
shaggy red moustache and a wart on his left cheek. When he spoke he showed
an even row of strong white teeth.

Dan looked at him with a kind of exhausted indignation.

"Well, it's been emptier," he returned shortly.

The man in blue struck a match and held it carefully to a dried pine
branch, watching, with a serious face, as the flame licked the rosin from
the crossed sticks. Then he placed a quart pot full of water on the coals,
and turned to meet Dan's eyes, which had grown ravenous as he caught the
scent of beef.

"You see we somehow thought you Johnnies would be hard up," he said in an
offhand manner, "so we made up our minds we'd ask you to dinner and cut our
rations square. Some of us are driving over an ox from camp, but