I dropped to my knee in the reddening pool and passed my arm under his head.

"Thank you," he said, and repeated the word as I wet my handkerchief and wiped the mire from his face; "thank you;--no, no,"--I was opening his shirt--"that\'s useless; get me where you can turn me over; you\'ve hit me in the back, my lad."

"I?--I hit you? Oh, Captain Jewett, thank God, I didn\'t hit you at all!"

"What\'s the difference, boy; you didn\'t aim to miss, did you? I didn\'t. It\'s not my only hurt; I think I broke something inside when I fell from the sad\'--ah! that\'s your bugle, isn\'t it? It\'s my last fight--oh, the devil! my good boy, don\'t begin to cry again; war\'s war; give me some water.... Thank you! And now, if you don\'t want me to bleed to death get me out of this slop, and--yes,--easy!--that\'s it--easy--oh, God! oh, let me down, boy, let me down, you\'re killing me! Oh!--" he fainted away.

With his unconscious head still on my arm I faced toward the hundred after-sounds of the fray and hallooed for help. To my surprise it promptly came. Three blundering boys we were who lifted him into the saddle and bore him to the house reeling and moaning astride of Cricket, the poor beast half dead with hard going. The sinking sun was as red as October when we issued into the highroad and moved up it to the grove gate through the bloody wreckage of the fray. The Louisianians were camping in the woods-pasture, Ferry\'s scouts in the grove, and the captive Federals were in the road between, shut in by heavy guards. At our appearance they crowded around us, greeting their undone commander with proud words of sympathy and love, and he thanked them as proudly and lovingly, though he could scarcely speak, more than to ask every moment for water. A number of our Sessions house group crowded out to meet us at the veranda steps; Camille; Harry Helm with his right hand bandaged; Cécile, attended by two or three Sessions children; and behind all Miss Harper exclaiming "Ah, my boy, you\'re a welcome sight--Oh! is that Captain Jewett!"

Two or three bystanders helped us bear him upstairs, where, turning from the bedside, I pressed Camille with eager questions.

"Lieutenant Ferry? he\'s unhurt--and so is Mr. Gholson! Mr. Gholson\'s gone to Franklin for doctors; Lieutenant Ferry sent him; he\'s been sending everybody everywhere faster than anybody else could think of anything!"

I asked where Ferry was now. Her eyes refilled--they were red from earlier distresses-............