ed about them.

It was late that night before the wounded had all been moved. Through
every hour of its black watches the surgeons, with their sleeves rolled
high, their arms red, bent over their tasks, until legs and arms were
piled in ghastly heaps ten feet high.

As John Vaughan turned from the scene where he had laid a wounded man to
wait his turn, his eye caught the look of terror on the face of a
wounded Southern boy. He was a slender little dark-haired fellow, under
sixteen, a miniature of Ned. The surgeon had just taken up his knife to
cut into the deep flesh wound for the Minie ball embedded there. John
saw the slender face go white and the terror-stricken young eyes search
the room for help. His breath came in quick gasps and he was about to
faint.

John slipped his arm around him:

"Just a minute, Doctor----"

He pressed his hand and whispered:

"Come now, little man, you're among your enemies. You've got to be
brave. Show your grit for the South. I've got a brother in your army who
looks like you. No white feather now when these Yankees can see you."

The slender figure stiffened and his eyes flashed:

"All right!" the sturdy lips cried. "Let him go ahead--I'm ready now!"

John held his hand, while the knife cut through the soft young flesh and
found the lead. The grip of the slim fingers tightened, but he gave no
cry. John handed him the bullet to put in his pocket and left him
smiling his thanks.

He began to wonder vaguely if he had lost his cook forever. Julius
should have found the regiment before this. It was just before day that
he came on him working with might and main at a job that was the last
one on earth he would have selected.

He had been seized by a burying squad and put to work dragging corpses
to the trenches from the great piles where the wagons had dumped them.

The black man rolled his eyes in piteous appeal to his master:

"For Gawd's sake, Marse John, save me--dese here men won't lemme go. I
been er throwin' corpses inter dem trenches since dark. I'se most dead
frum work, let 'lone bein' scared ter death."

"Sorry, Julius," was the quick answer, "we've all got to work at a time
like this. There's no help for it."

Julius bent again to his horrible task. The thing that appalled him was
the way the dead men kept looking at him out of their eyes wide and
staring in the flickering light of the lanterns.

John stood watching him thoughtfully. He had finished one pile of