ers were quitting their task for the day. He would hardly make a
night of it alone there among the dead.

Nine men in ten whom you meet after a battle inquire the way to some
fraction of the army--as if any one could know. Doubtless this officer
was lost. After resting himself a moment he would presumably follow one
of the retiring burial squads.

When all were gone he walked straight away into the forest toward the
red west, its light staining his face like blood. The air of confidence
with which he now strode along showed that he was on familiar ground; he
had recovered his bearings. The dead on his right and on his left were
unregarded as he passed. An occasional low moan from some
sorely-stricken wretch whom the relief-parties had not reached, and who
would have to pass a comfortless night beneath the stars with his thirst
to keep him company, was equally unheeded. What, indeed, could the
officer have done, being no surgeon and having no water?

At the head of a shallow ravine, a mere depression of the ground, lay a
small group of bodies. He saw, and swerving suddenly from his course
walked rapidly toward them. Scanning each one sharply as he passed, he
stopped at last above one which lay at a slight remove from the others,
near a clump of small trees. He looked at it narrowly. It seemed to
stir. He stooped and laid his hand upon its face. It screamed.

* * * * *

The officer was Captain Downing Madwell, of a Massachusetts regiment of
infantry, a daring and intelligent soldier, an honorable man.

In the regiment were two brothers named Halcrow--Caffal and Creede
Halcrow. Caffal Halcrow was a sergeant in Captain Madwell's company, and
these two men, the sergeant and the captain, were devoted friends. In so
far as disparity of rank, difference in duties and considerations of
military discipline would permit they were commonly together. They had,
indeed, grown up together from childhood. A habit of the heart is not
easily broken off. Caffal Halcrow had nothing military in his taste nor
disposition, but the thought of separation from his friend was
disagreeable; he enlisted in the company in which Madwell was
second-lieutenant. Each had taken two steps upward in rank, but between
the highest non-commissioned and the lowest commissioned officer the
gulf is deep and wide and the old relation was maintained with
difficulty and a difference.

Creede Halcrow, the brother of Caffal, was t