I knew Ned Ferry was having that inner strife with which we ought always to credit even Gholson\'s sort, and I had a loving ambition to help him "take the upper fork." So doing, I might help Charlotte Oliver fulfil the same principle, win the same victory. When, therefore, Gholson put the question to me squarely, Would I speak to Ferry? I consented, and as the four of us, horsemen, left our beasts in the stable munching corn, Gholson began a surprisingly animated talk with our host, and Ferry, with a quizzical smile, said to me "Talk with you?--shall be happy to; we\'ll just make a slight détour on this side the grove and woods-pasture, eh?"

He meant the north side, opposite that one by which we had come from church. Here the landscape was much the same as there; wide fields on each side the fenced highway that still ran north and south, and woods for the sky-line everywhere. We chose an easy footpath along the northern fence of the grove, crossed the highway, and passed on a few steps alongside the woods-pasture fence. We talked as we went, he giving the kindest heed to my every word though I could see that, like any good soldier, he was scanning all the ground for its fighting values, and, not to be outdone, I, myself, pointed out, a short way up the public road, a fence-gap on the left, made by our camping soldiers two nights before. It was at another such gap, in the woods-pasture fence, that we turned back by a path through it which led into the wood and so again toward the highway and the house-grove. The evening General Austin sent me to Wiggins it was at this gap that I saw old Dismukes sitting cross-legged on the ground, playing poker; and here, now, I summoned the desperation to speak directly to my point.

I had already tried hard to get something said, but had found myself at every turn entangled in generalities. Now, stammering and gagging I remarked that our experiences of the morning, both in church and out, had in some way combined with an earlier word of his own to me, and given me a valuable thought. "You remember, when I wanted to shoot that Yankee off my horse?"

"Yes; and I said--what?"

"You said \'This isn\'t your private war.\' Lieutenant, I hope those words may last in my memory forever and come to me in every moral situation in which I may find myself."

"Yes? Well, I think that\'s good."

"It seems to me, Lieutenant Ferry, that in every problem of moral con............