e with duty, Colonel," said the young man.

"I shall use you only in case of extremity, Captain," replied Waldron.
"We have business to settle to-morrow."

"I ask no favors on that account. I hope you will offer me none."

"In case of need I shall spare no one," declared Waldron.

Then he took out his watch, looked at it impatiently, put it to his
ear, restored it to his pocket, and felt into an attitude of deep
attention. Evidently his whole mind was on his battle, and he was
waiting, watching, yearning for its outburst.

"If he wins this fight," thought Fitz Hugh, "how can I do him a harm?
And yet," he added, "how can I help it?"

Minutes passed. Fitz Hugh tried to think of his injury, and to steel
himself against his chief. But the roar of battle on the right, and
the suspense and imminence of battle on the left, absorbed the
attention of even this wounded and angry spirit, as, indeed, they
might have absorbed that of any being not more or less than human. A
private wrong, insupportable though it might be, seemed so small amid
that deadly clamor and awful expectation! Moreover, the intellect
which worked so calmly and vigorously by his side, and which alone of
all things near appeared able to rule the coming crisis, began to
dominate him, in spite of his sense of injury. A thought crossed him
to the effect that the great among men are too valuable to be punished
for their evil deeds. He turned to the absorbed brigade commander, now
not only his ruler but even his protector, with a feeling that he must
accord him a word of peace, a proffer in some form of possible
forgiveness and friendship. But the man's face was clouded and stern
with responsibility and authority. He seemed at that moment too lofty
to be approached with a message of pardon. Fitz Hugh gazed at him with
a mixture of profound respect and smothered hate. He gazed, turned
away, and remained silent.

Minutes more passed. Then a mounted orderly dashed up at full speed,
with the words, "Colonel Major Gahogan has fronted."

"Has he?" answered Waldron, with a smile which thanked the trooper and
made him happy. "Ride on through the thicket here, my man, and tell
Colonel Gildersleeve to push up his skirmishers."

With a thud of hoofs and a rustling of parting foliage the cavalryman
disappeared amid the underwood. A minute or two later a thin, dropping
rattle of musketry, five hundred yards or so to the front, announced
that the sharpshooters of the Fo