When the youth awoke it seemed to him that he had been asleep for a thousand years, and he felt sure that he opened his eyes upon an unexpected world. Gray mists were slowly shifting before the first efforts of the sun rays. An could be seen in the eastern sky. An icy dew had chilled his face, and immediately upon arousing he curled farther down into his blanket. He stared for a while at the leaves overhead, moving in a heraldic wind of the day.  
The distance was splintering and blaring with the noise of fighting. There was in the sound an expression of a deadly , as if it had not began and was not to cease.
 
About him were the rows and groups of men that he had dimly seen the previous night. They were getting a last of sleep before the . The gaunt, features and dusty figures were made plain by this light at the dawning, but it dressed the skin of the men in corpse-like and made the limbs appear pulseless and dead. The youth started up with a little cry when his eyes first swept over this motionless mass of men, thick-spread upon the ground, , and in strange . His disordered mind interpreted the hall of the forest as a charnel place. He believed for an instant that he was in the house of the dead, and he did not dare to move lest these start up, squalling and squawking. In a second, however, he achieved his proper mind. He swore a complicated oath at himself. He saw that this picture was not a fact of the present, but a prophecy.
 
He heard then the noise of a fire crackling briskly in the cold air, and, turning his head, he saw his friend pottering busily about a small blaze. A few other figures moved in the fog, and he heard the hard cracking of blows.
 
Suddenly there was a hollow of drums. A distant sang faintly. Similar sounds, varying in strength, came from near and far over the forest. The called to each other like gamecocks. The near thunder of the regimental drums rolled.
 
The body of men in the woods . There was a general uplifting of heads. A murmuring of voices broke upon the air. In it there was much of oaths. Strange gods were addressed in of the early hours necessary to correct war. An officer's rang out and quickened the movement of the men. The tangled limbs unraveled. The corpse-hued faces were hidden behind fists that twisted slowly in the eye .
 
The youth sat up and gave to an enormous yawn. "Thunder!" he remarked . He rubbed his eyes, and then putting up his hand felt carefully the bandage over his wound. His friend, perceiving him to be awake, came from the fire. "Well, Henry, ol' man, how do yeh feel this mornin'?" he demanded.
 
The youth yawned again. Then he his mouth to a little . His head, in truth, felt like a melon, and there was an unpleasant sensation at his stomach.
 
"Oh, Lord, I feel pretty bad," he said.
 
"Thunder!" exclaimed the other. "I hoped ye'd feel all right this mornin'. Let's see th' bandage--I guess it's slipped." He began to tinker at the wound in rather a clumsy way until the youth exploded.
 
"Gosh-dern it!" he said in sharp ; "you're the hangdest man I ever saw! You wear muffs on your hands. Why in good thunderation can't you be more easy? I'd rather you'd stand off an' throw guns at it. Now, go slow, an' don't act as if you was nailing down carpet."
 
He glared with command at his friend, but the latter answered . "Well, well, come now, an' git some grub," he said. "Then, maybe, yeh'll feel better."
 
At the fireside the loud young soldier watched over his comrade's wants with tenderness and care. He was very busy marshaling the little black vagabonds of tin cups and pouring into them the streaming iron colored mixture from a small and sooty tin pail. He had some fresh meat, which he roasted hurriedly on a stick. He sat down then and the youth's appetite with glee.
 
The youth took note of a change in his comrade since those days of camp life upon the river bank. He seemed no more to be continually regarding the proportions of his personal prowess. He was not furious at small words that his . He was no more a loud young soldier. There was about him now a fine reliance. He showed a quiet belief in his purposes and his abilities. And this inward confidence evidently enabled him to be indifferent to little words of other men aimed at him.
 
The youth reflected. He had been used to regarding his comrade as a child with an grown from his inexperi............