"It's a sudden an' easy death," said Dalton, philosophically.

"Too sudden an' too easy. I don't mind tellin' you that seein' men
killed an' wounded is a spo't that's beginnin' to pall on me. Reckon
I've had enough of it to last me for the next thousand years. I've
forgot, if I ever knowed, what this war wuz started about. Say, young
fellers, I've got a wife back thar, a high-steppin', fine-lookin' gal not
more'n twenty years old--I'm just twenty-five myself, an' we've got a
year-old baby the cutest that wuz ever born. Now, when I wuz lookin' at
that charge of Pickett's men, an' the whole world wuz blazin' with fire,
an' all the skies wuz rainin' steel and lead, an' whar grass growed
before, nothin' but bayonets wuz growin' then, do you know what I seed
sometimes?"

"What was it?" asked Harry.

"Fur a secon' all that hell of fire an' smoke an' killin' would float
away, an' I seed our mountain, with the cove, an' the trees, an' the
green grass growin' in it, an' the branch, with the water so clear you
could see your face in it, runnin' down the center, an' thar at the head
of the cove my cabin, not much uv a buildin' to look at, no towerin'
mansion, but just a stout two-room log cabin that the snows an' hails of
winter can't break into, an' in the door wuz standin' Mary with the hair
flyin' about her face, an' her eyes shinin', with the little feller in
her arms, lookin' at me 'way off as I come walkin' fast down the cove
toward 'em, returnin' from the big war."

There was a moment's silence, and Dalton said gruffly to hide his
feelings: