who were gathering firewood. One, a small, weazened fellow, gave him
an envious look.

"Wish I was going riding with you," he said. "It's fine in the woods
now."

Dick laughed through sheer exuberance of spirits.

"Maybe it is and maybe it isn't," he said. "Perhaps the forest is filled
with rebel sharpshooters."

"If you ride toward Jackson you're likely to strike Confederate bands."

"I didn't say where I'm going, but you may be certain I'll keep a watch
for those bands wherever I may be."

The little man was uncommonly strong nevertheless, as he carried on his
shoulder a heavy log which he threw down by one of the fires, but Dick,
absorbed in his journey, forgot the desire of the soldier to be riding
through the forest too.

He soon left the camp behind. He looked back at it only once, and beheld
the luminous glow of the campfires. Then the forest shut it out and he
rode on through a region almost abandoned by its people owing to the
converging armies. He did not yet look at his map, because he knew that
he would soon come into the main road to Jackson. It would be sufficient
to determine his course then.

Dick was not familiar with the farther South, which was a very different
region from his own Kentucky. His home was a region of firm land, hills
and clear streams, but here the ground lay low, the soil was soft and
the waters dark and sluggish. But his instincts as a woodsman were
fortified by much youthful training, and he felt that he could find the
way.

It gave him now great joy to leave the army and ride away through the
deep woods. He was tired of battle and the sight of wounds and death.
The noises of the camp were painful to his ear, and in the forest he
found peace.

He was absolutely alone in his world, and glad of it. The woods were in
all the depth and richness of a Southern spring. Vast masses of green
foliage billowed away to right and left. Great festoons of moss hung
from the oaks, and trailing vines wrapped many of the trees almost to
their tops. Wild flowers, pink, yellow and blue, unknown by name to
Dick, bloomed in the open spaces.

The air of early morning was crisp with the breath of life. He had come
upon a low ridge of hard ground, away from the vast current and low,
sodden shores of the Mississippi. Here was a clean atmosphere, and the
forest, the forest everywhere. A mockingbird, perched on a bough almost
over his head, began to pour forth his liquid song, and from another far