ng. Then there was a period he could not account for at all, and
suddenly the sun was fading and it was evening. Somebody pushed a
canteen into his hand, then lifted both hand and canteen for him so that
he could drink some liquid which was not clear water but thick and
brackish, evil-tasting, but which moistened his dry mouth and swollen
tongue.

Through the gathering dusk he could see distant splotches of red and
yellow--were they fires? And shells screamed somewhere. Drew held his
head between his hands and cowered under that beat of noise which
combined with the pulsation of pain just over his eyes. Men were moving
around him, and horses. He heard tags of speech, but none of them were
intelligible.

Was the army pulling out? Drew tried to think coherently. He had
something to do. It was important! Not here--where? The boom of the
field artillery, the flickering of those fires, they confused him,
making it difficult to sort out his memories.

Again, a canteen appeared before him, but now he pushed it petulantly
aside. He didn't want a drink; he wanted to think--to recall what it was
he had to do.

"Drew--!" There was a figure, outlined in part by one of those fires,
squatting beside him. "Can you ride?"

Ride? Where? Why? He had a mule, didn't he? Back in the horse lines.
Boyd--he had left the mule with Boyd. Boyd! _Now_ he knew what had to be
done!

He moved away from the outstretched hand of the man beside him, got to
his feet, saw the blot of a mount the other was holding. And he caught
at reins, dragged them from the other's hand before he could resist.

"Boyd!" He didn't know whether he called that name aloud, or whether it
was one with the beat in his head. Boyd was out on that littered field,
and Drew was going to bring him in.

Towing the half-seen animal by the reins, Drew started for the fires and
the boom of the guns.

"All right!" The words came to him hollowly. "But not that way, you're
loco! This way! The Yankees are burnin' up what's left of the town; that
ain't the battlefield!"

Drew was ready to resist, but now his own eyes confirmed that. Fire was
raging among the few remaining buildings of the ghost town, and shells
were striking at targets pinned in that light, shells from Confederate
batteries, taking sullen return payment for that disastrous July day.

A lantern bobbed by his side, swinging to the tread of the man carrying
it. And, as they turned away from the inferno which was co