. The cedars
along its shore stood so funereally, so crape-like and dark, the
sycamores were so clay-white and long of arm, the great birds slowly
circling above a neighbouring wood of so dreary a significance, that the
heart sank and sank. Was this war?--war, heroic and glorious, with
banners, trumpets, and rewarded enterprise? Manassas had been war--for
one brief summer day! But ever since there was only marching, tenting,
suffering, and fatigue--and fatigue--and fatigue.

Maury Stafford and the Reverend Mr. Corbin Wood found themselves riding
side by side, with other mounted officers, in advance of Loring's
leading regiment. The chaplain had experienced, the day before, an ugly
fall. His knee was badly wrenched, and so, perforce, he rode to-day,
though, as often as he thought the grey could stand it, he took up a man
behind him. Now, however, he was riding single. Indeed, for the last
mile he had uttered no pitiful comment and given no invitation.
Moreover, he talked persistently and was forever calling his companion's
attention to the beauty of the view. At last, after a series of short
answers, it occurred to Stafford to regard him more closely. There was a
colour in the chaplain's cheek and he swayed ever so slightly and
rhythmically in his saddle. Stafford checked his horse, drew his hand
out of an ice-caked gauntlet, and leaning over laid it on the other's
which was bare. The chaplain's skin was burning hot. Stafford made a
sound of concern and rode forward to the colonel. In a minute he
returned. "Now you and I, Mr. Wood, will fall out here and just quietly
wait until the wagons come by. Then the doctor will fix you up nicely in
the ambulance.... Oh, yes, you are! You're ill enough to want to lie
down for awhile. Some one else, you know, can ride Pluto."

Corbin Wood pondered the matter. "That's true, that's very true, my dear
Maury. Fontaine, now, behind us in the ranks, his shoes are all worn
out. Fontaine, eh? Fontaine knows more Greek than any man--and he'll be
good to Pluto. Pluto's almost worn out himself--he's not immortal like
Xanthius and Balius. Do you know, Maury, it's little wonder that
Gulliver found the Houyhnhnms so detesting war? Horses have a dreadful
lot in war--and the quarrel never theirs. Do but look at that
stream!--how cool and pleasant, winding between the willows--"

Stafford got him to one side of the road, to a small plateau beneath an
overhanging bank. The column was now crawling t