scouting across unknown country, the hours of pain while the soft moon
smiled down upon a stricken field, the weary weeks in the low-roofed
hospital at Richmond. It seemed hardly possible that I could be that
same slender, untried lad who stole forth with quaking heart, fearful
of the very shadows of the oaks about the old home. What centuries of
experience lay between! The same boy, yet moulded now into a man; into
the leader of a troop of fighting men, hardened to steel by service,
trusted by one whom the South most revered and loved,--a veteran
soldier in the ranks of the hardest fighting legions our world has ever
known. Yet such had been the magic touch of war. So deeply had my every
thought become merged in these musings that Craig, slipping silently as
a ghost from out the engulfing darkness, laid hand upon my bridle-rein
before I became aware of his approach.

"I got 'er all right now, Cap," he announced quietly, peering up into
my face. "We uns are not more nor a hundred yards ter the right of the
road, but I reckon you'll find ther way a bit rough."

He led both horses forward, moving slowly and with that silent caution
so characteristic of his class. With scarcely the scraping of a hoof on
the flinty rocks we came forth in safety upon the defined, hard-beaten
track.

"The south is over yonder ter the left," he whispered, as he swung up
into saddle, "an' the trend of the road is mighty nigh due west."

"But in which direction does their main camp lie, Sergeant?"

He shook his head gravely.