when asking for my mail to-day, I
persuaded the post-master to give me your letters. Don't mind me--you
will want to read them--quite a batch of them."

"Oh, they can wait. Don't go. Ah! here's Josiah with coffee."

"How it does set a fellow up, Penhallow. Another cup, please. I had to
wait a long time for our letters and yours. Really that place was more
tragic than a battlefield."

"Why so? I send Josiah for my mail."

"Oh, there were three cold-blooded men-machines returning letters. I
watched them marking the letters--'not found'--'missing'--and so on."

"Killed, I suppose--or prisoners."

"Yes, awful, indeed--most sorrowful! Imagine it! Others were forwarding
letters--heaps of them--from men who may be dead. You know how apt men
are to write letters before a battle."

"I wait till it is over," said Penhallow.

"That post-office gave me a fit of craving for home and peace."

"Home-sickness! What, you, Blake!"

"Oh, that worst kind; home-sickness for a home when you have no home. I
wonder if in that other world we shall be home-sick for this."

"That depends. Ah! here comes a reminder that we are in this world just
now--and just as we have begun one of our real talks."

An orderly appeared with a note. Penhallow read it. He was on his feet at
once. "Saddle Hoodoo, Josiah. I must go. Come soon again, Blake. We have
had a good talk--or a bit of one."

At four in the morning of June 14th, when John Penhallow with a group of
older engineers looked across the twenty-one hundred feet of the James
River they were to bridge, he realized the courage and capacity of the
soldier who had so completely deceived his wary antagonist. Before eleven
that night a hundred pontoons stayed by barges bridged the wide stream
from shore to shore. Already the Second Corps under Hancock had been
hastily ferried over the river. The work on the bridge had been hard, and
the young Captain had had neither food nor rest. Late at night, the work
being over, he recrossed the bridge, and after a hasty meal lay down on
the bluff above the James with others of his Corps and slept the uneasy
sleep of an overtired man. At dawn he was awakened by the multiple noises
of an army moving on the low-lying meadows below the bluff. Refreshed and
free from any demand on his time, he breakfasted at ease, and lighting
his pipe was at once deeply interested in what he saw. As he looked about
him, he was aware of General Grant standing alone on the hig