of water when there's enough for all. Has
any man a handkerchief?"

"Here, sir," said Warner; "it's ragged and not very clean, but I hope it
will do."

The Colonel raised the handkerchief on the point of his sword and gave
a hail. The bulk of the two armies had passed on, and now there was
silence in the woods as the two little forces confronted each other
across the stream.

Dick saw a tall form in Confederate gray rise up from the bushes on the
other side of the brook.

"Are you wanting to surrender?" the man called in a long, soft drawl.

"Not by any means. We want a drink of water, and we're just bound to
have it."

"You don't want it any more than we do, and you're not any more bound to
have it than we are."

The colonel hesitated a moment, and then, influenced by a generous
impulse, said:

"If you won't fire, we won't."

The tall, elderly Southerner, evidently a colonel, also said:

"It's a fair proposition, sir. My men have been working so hard the last
two days licking you Yanks that they're plum' burnt up with thirst."

"I don't admit the licking, although it's obvious that you've gained
the advantage so far, but is it agreed that we shall have a truce for a
quarter of an hour?"

"It is, sir; the truce of the water, and may we drink well! Come on,
boys!"

Colonel Winchester gave a similar order to his men, and each side rose
from the thickets, and made a rush for the brook. It was a beautiful
little stream, the most beautiful in the world just then to Dick and his
friends. Clear and cold, the color of silver in the moonlight, it rushed
down from the mountains. On one side knelt the men in blue, and on the
other the men in gray, and the pure water was like the elixir of heaven
to their parched and burning throats.

Dick drank long, and then as he raised his face from the stream he saw
opposite him a tall, lean youth, evidently from the far South, Louisiana
perhaps, a lad with a tanned face and a wide mouth stretched in a
friendly grin.

"Tastes good, doesn't it, Yank?" he said.

"Yes, it does, Reb," replied Dick. "I felt that I was drying up and just
crumbling away like old dead wood. As soon as the gallon that I've drunk
has percolated thoroughly through my system I intend to hoist aboard
another gallon."

"I don't know what percolate means, but I reckon it has something to
do with travelin' about through your system. I think I need a couple of
gallons myself. Say, will you give a fair a