he headquarters.
As he approached the front, he saw the bushy ridge in which, or back of
which, the men lay at rest. Behind them were surgeons selecting partially
protected places for immediate aid, stretcher-bearers, ambulances and all
the mechanism of help for the wounded. Officers were making sure that men
had at hand one hundred rounds of ammunition.

Some three hundred yards behind the mid-centre of the Second Corps, on
the Taneytown road, Penhallow was directed to a small, rather shabby
one-storey farm-house. "By George," he murmured, "here is one general who
means to be near the front." He was met at the door by the tall handsome
figure of General Hancock, a blue-eyed man with a slight moustache over a
square expressively firm jaw.

"Glad to see you, Penhallow. Meade was anxious--I knew you would be on
time. Come in."

Penhallow saw before him a mean little room, on one side a wide bed with
a gaudy coverlet, on a pine table in the centre a bucket of water, a tin
cup, and a candle-stick. Five rickety rush-covered chairs completed the
furnishings.

Meade rose from study of the map an engineer officer was explaining. He
was unknown to Penhallow, who observed him with interest--a tall spare
man with grey-sprinkled dark hair a large Roman nose and spectacles over
wide blue eyes; a gentleman of the best, modest, unassuming, and now
carelessly clad.

"Colonel Penhallow," said Hancock.

"Glad to see you." He turned to receive with evident pleasure a report of
the morning's fight on the right wing, glanced without obvious interest
at the captured flag of the Stonewall Brigade, and greeted the colonel
warmly. "I can only offer you water," he said. "Sit down. You may like to
look over this map."

While the Commander wrote orders and despatched aide after aide,
Penhallow bent over the map. "You see," said Hancock, "we have unusual
luck for us in a short interior line. I judge from the moving guidons
that Lee is extending his front--it may be six miles long."

"And ours?"

"Well, from wing to wing across the loop to right, not half of that."

"I see," said Penhallow, and accepting a drink of tepid water he went out
to find and report to the chief of artillery, General Hunt.

He met him with General John Gibbon and two aides a few yards from the
door, and making his brief report learned as he moved away that there
was some trouble on the left wing. Meade coming out with Hancock, they
mounted and rode away in hast