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rther and further away from the beautiful city in which they had fully expected to be encamped ere this; though they grimly contested every mile they gave up, bound to sacrifice as few of their heavy guns as possible. Another thing staggered the boys when they came to think of it. During the Civil War in their own country some of the greatest battles then known to history were fought, and the numbers on both sides did not really amount to more than two hundred thousand men. Here there were more than as many million grappling in deadly earnest, supplied with the most wonderful of modern death-dealing weapons, with engineers highly educated along the lines of utilizing these engines of wholesale destruction. No wonder then the dead and wounded were as the leaves of the forest when the wind of late October tears them from their hold upon the branches and scatters them in windrows behind the logs and stumps and in fence corners. Rod had some reason to believe that if they were allowed to proceed forward on this particular day they would presently reach the regiment in which Andre, sought so earnestly in the interest of his family, had an humble part. He was determined that should fortune favor them and the object of their search be accomplished he would listen no longer to the pleadings of Josh, but strike for Paris, so as to get away from this war-blasted country as quickly as possible. It was beginning to pall upon Rod. After all he was only a boy, and had never been accustomed to such terrible sights as of late were being continually thrust before him. Nature has its limits, and Rod believed he was now very close to the end of his endurance. "As it is, what we've run across will haunt us the rest of our lives," he was telling himself as he led the way along the difficult road; "and for one I'm longing to wake up again, and find myself wandering by the peaceful waters of the river bordering Garland in the far-distant States. And here's hoping that this may turn out to be our very last day in the track of the battling armies." The dust was thick in places, partly on account of the season of the year, and then again because of the unwonted use to which that particular thoroughfare had been put of late. When several hundred thousand feet have tramped along in almost endless procession, and then innumerable vehicles of every known description, not to mention heavy artillery, some of it drawn by traction engines,
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