panion increased, and mingled with it was a
growing admiration wholly aside from his respect for him as a soldier.
He was showing observation or intuition of a high order. The General's
heart was full. He had all of the mountaineer's reserve and taciturnity,
but now after years of repression and at the touch of real sympathy his
feelings overflowed.

"See here, Prescott," he said abruptly, "I once thought it was wrong for
me to love Helen Harley--the difference between us is so great--and
maybe I think so yet, but I'm goin' to try to win her anyhow. I'm just
that deep in love, and maybe the good God will forgive me, because I
can't help it. I loved that girl the first time I ever set eyes on her;
I wasn't asked about it, I just had to."

"There is no reason why you should not go ahead and win her," said the
other, warmly.

"Prescott," continued the mountaineer, "you don't know all that I've
been."

"It's nothing dishonest, that I'd swear."

"It's not that, but look where I started. I was born in the mountains
back there, an' I tell you we weren't much above the wild animals that
live in them same mountains. There was just one room to our log
house--one for father, mother and all of us. I never was taught nothin'.
I didn't learn to read till I was twenty years old and the big words
still bother me. I went barefoot six months every year till I was a man
grown. Why, my cavalry boots pinch me now."

He uttered the lamentation of the boots with such tragic pathos that
Prescott smiled, but was glad to hide it in the darkness.

"An' I don't know nothin' now," resumed the mountaineer sadly. "When I
go into a parlour I'm like a bear in a cage. If there's anythin' about
to break, I always break it. When they begin talkin' books and pictures
and such I don't know whether they are right or wrong."

"You are not alone in that."

"An' I'm out of place in a house," continued the General, not noticing
the interruption. "I belong to the mountains an' the fields, an' when
this war's over I guess I'll go back to 'em. They think somethin' of me
now because I can ride an' fight, but war ain't all. When it's over
there'll be no use for me. I can't dance an' I can't talk pretty, an'
I'm always steppin' on other peoples' feet. I guess I ain't the timber
they make dandies of."

"I should hope not," said Prescott with emphasis. He was really stirred
by the big man's lament, seeing that he valued so much the little things
that he did