ed up, he saw
that the sky was covered with black clouds. The saddest of woods had
moved far away, but by some sort of optical illusion he could yet see
it.

Save for the distant flash of random firing, the darkness was intense.
Every star was gone, and Dick moved without any guide. But he needed
none. His course was fixed. He could not miss the mournful wood hanging
there like a pall on the horizon.

His feet struck against something. It was a man, but he was past all
feeling, and Dick went on, striking by and by against many more. It was
impossible at the moment to see Warner's face, but he began to feel
of the figures with his hands. There was none so long and slender as
Warner's, and he continued his search, moving steadily toward the wood.

He saw presently a lantern moving over the field, and he walked toward
it. Three men were with the lantern, and the one who carried it held it
up as he approached. The beams fell directly upon Dick, revealing his
pale face and torn and dusty uniform.

"What do you want, Yank?" called the man.

"I'm looking for a friend of mine who must have fallen somewhere near
here."

The man laughed, but it was not a laugh of joy or irony. It was a laugh
of pity and sadness.

"You've shorely got a big look comin'," he said. "They're scattered all
around here, coverin' acres an' acres, just like dead leaves shook by
a storm from the trees. But j'in us, Yank. You can't do nothin' in the
darkness all by yourself. We're Johnny Rebs, good and true, and I may
be shootin' straight at you to-morrow mornin', but I reckon I've got
nothin' ag'in you now. We're lookin' for a brother o' mine."

Dick joined them, and the four, the three in gray and the one in blue,
moved on. A friendly current had passed between him and them, and there
would be no thought of hostility until the morning, when it would come
again. It was often so in this war, when men of the same blood met in
the night between battles.

"What sort of a fellow is it that you're lookin' for?" asked the man
with the lantern.

"About my age. Very tall and thin. You could mark him by his height."

"It takes different kinds of people to make the world. My brother ain't
like him a-tall. Sam's short, an' thick as a buffalo. Weighs two twenty
with no fat on him. What crowd do you belong to, youngster?"

"The division on our right. We attacked the wood there."

"Well, you're a bully boy. Give me your hand, if you are a Yank. You
shore