ueer experience. The surgeon-in-charge informed me
that I would probably lose the arm. The younger surgeon says the ball
will become what he calls encysted. They probed and couldn't find it.
Isn't that Josiah I hear?"

"Yes, I will bring him in."

In a moment they came back. "My God! Master John, I been looking for you
all night and this morning I found Hoodoo dead. Didn't I say he'd bring
you bad luck. Oh, my!--are you hurt bad?"

"Less noise there," said an assistant surgeon, "or get out of this."

"He'll be quiet," said Blake, "and you will have the decency to be less
rough." The indignant doctor walked away.

"Poor Hoodoo--he did his best," murmured John. "Get me out of this,
Blake. It's a hell of suffering. Take me to Tom McGregor at City Point."

"I will, but now I must go. General Parke hopes you are doing well. You
will be mentioned in his despatches."

"That is of no moment--get me to McGregor. Hang the flies--I can't fight
them."

John never forgot the ambulance and the rough railway ride to City Point,
nor his pleasure when at rest in the officers' pavilion he waited for his
old playmate. As I write I see, as he saw, the long familiar ward, the
neat cots, the busy orderlies. He waited with the impatience of
increasing pain. "Well, Tom," he said, with an effort to appear gay,
"here's your chance at last to get even."

McGregor made brief reply as he uncovered the wounded joint. Then he said
gravely, "A little ether--I will get out the ball."

"No ether, Tom, I can stand it. Now get to work."

"I shall hurt you horribly."

"No ether," he repeated. "Go on, Tom."

McGregor sat beside him with a finger on the bounding pulse and
understood its meaning and the tale it told. "It will not be long, John,"
and then with attention so concentrated as not even to note the one stir
of the tortured body or to hear the long-drawn groan of pain, he rose to
his feet. "All right, John--it's only a slug--lucky it was not a musket
ball." He laid a tender hand on the sweating brow, shot a dose of morphia
into the right arm, and added, "You will get well with a stiff joint. Now
go to sleep. The right arm is sound, a flesh-wound."

"Thanks," said John, "we are even now, Tom. Captain Blake telegraphed
your father, Tom--but write, please."

"To whom, John?"

"To Leila--but do not alarm them."

"I will write. In a week or two you must go home. That is the medicine
you need most. You will still have some pain, but yo