hed it
forward through the wreckage at the side of the rifle until it pressed
against the trigger guard. Then he moved the end slowly outward until he
could feel that it had cleared it, then, closing his eyes, thrust it
against the trigger with all his strength! There was no explosion; the
rifle had been discharged as it dropped from his hand when the building
fell. But it did its work.

* * * * *

Lieutenant Adrian Searing, in command of the picket-guard on that part
of the line through which his brother Jerome had passed on his mission,
sat with attentive ears in his breastwork behind the line. Not the
faintest sound escaped him; the cry of a bird, the barking of a
squirrel, the noise of the wind among the pines--all were anxiously
noted by his overstrained sense. Suddenly, directly in front of his
line, he heard a faint, confused rumble, like the clatter of a falling
building translated by distance. The lieutenant mechanically looked at
his watch. Six o'clock and eighteen minutes. At the same moment an
officer approached him on foot from the rear and saluted.

"Lieutenant," said the officer, "the colonel directs you to move forward
your line and feel the enemy if you find him. If not, continue the
advance until directed to halt. There is reason to think that the enemy
has retreated."

The lieutenant nodded and said nothing; the other officer retired. In a
moment the men, apprised of their duty by the non-commissioned officers
in low tones, had deployed from their rifle-pits and were moving forward
in skirmishing order, with set teeth and beating hearts.

This line of skirmishers sweeps across the plantation toward the
mountain. They pass on both sides of the wrecked building, observing
nothing. At a short distance in their rear their commander comes. He
casts his eyes curiously upon the ruin and sees a dead body half buried
in boards and timbers. It is so covered with dust that its clothing is
Confederate gray. Its face is yellowish white; the cheeks are fallen in,
the temples sunken, too, with sharp ridges about them, making the
forehead forbiddingly narrow; the upper lip, slightly lifted, shows the
white teeth, rigidly clenched. The hair is heavy with moisture, the face
as wet as the dewy grass all about. From his point of view the officer
does not observe the rifle; the man was apparently killed by the fall of
the building.

"Dead a week," said the officer curtly, moving on an