its gorgeous cover, the photograph alone
adorning it. He took the picture, looked long and tenderly at the two
faces, then slipping the card out of the frame he put it in his breast
pocket.

A moment later he came over to G. W.'s bed. The boy looked up
trustingly.

"I'se awake, Colonel."

"Good for you, comrade. I want to have a little talk with you."

A thin brown little hand slipped itself into the large firm one, and G.
W. sat up.

"G. W.," said the Colonel, "I'm going to the front. You know what that
means?"

"I 'low I does, Colonel. When does we start? I'se been a-workin' ter get
ready."

"But, comrade, _you_ are not to go!" The poor little body-guard had
feared this. In his misery he looked up into the Colonel's face and
gulped helplessly.

"Don't take it that way, my child," said the Colonel, smoothing the
little woolly head burrowing back in the pillow; "it would be impossible
for me to take a little fellow like you along. There's just a chance,
you know, G. W., that I may not get back. I've thought lately that I did
wrong to bring you from Tampa; but you had nothing there, and we have
had each other here, comrade, and _that_ ought to count for something."

A tightening of the little hand replied.

"If I shouldn't come back, my child," the Colonel continued, "I want you
to know that I have made all arrangements for you to be sent up to the
Boy and his Mother. They'll look out for you, comrade, for they know
that you are my little body-guard, and they will adopt you in their
home--for your own sake too, G. W.; there's the making of a man in you,
G. W., and you will not ever disappoint anybody, no matter what happens
to me. During the coming days here, keep within your limits, my boy.
Obey orders, and you will be a hero indeed, for I know how much you want
to go along to take care of me. By staying right here you are doing a
harder thing."

G. W. was sobbing forlornly. The Colonel got up and paced the tent for a
silent moment or two.

"You've been the best kind of a comrade, G. W.," he went on, as he came
back, while the listener drew his legs up and down under the coarse gray
blanket, in an agony of sorrow. "And you're not going to fail me now,
old fellow."

"Yes, sah! No, sah!" The pillow half stifled the words.

Presently poor G. W. sat up in bed again. "Colonel," he said, "you jes'
banish me out yo' mind! You do your work, an' be keerful to take keer ob
yo'self. I'se goin' ter do what yo w