d another, "he'd be afther
gittin' ayont the McManuses, an' here they are. They're Fardowners on'y.
Pat's Corkonian, _he_ is; he'll be nearer th' inemy by a fut, I'll ingage
yez."

"He's my cousin,"--hard tugging at the dead bodies with one arm;--the
other hung powerless. "I can't face Mary an' her childher agin an' say I
lift her man widout Christian burial.--Howld yer sowl! Dan Reilly, give us
a lift; here he is. Are ye dead, Pat?"

One eye in the blackened face opened.

"On'y my leg. 'O'Shaughnessy agin th' warld, an' the warld agin th'
Divil!'"--which was received with a cheer from the Corkonians.

"Av yer Honor," insinuated Dan, "wud attind to _this_ poor man, we'd be
proud to diskiver the frind you're in sarch of."

Blecker glanced at the stout Irishmen about him, with kind faces under all
the whiskey, and stronger arms than his own."

"I will, boys. You know him,--he's in your regiment,--Captain McKinstry.
He fell in this wood, they tell me."

"I think I know him,"--his head to one side. "Woodenish-looking chap, all
run up into shoulders, with yellow hair?"

Blecker nodded, and motioned them to carry O'Shaughnessy into a low
tool-house near, a mere shed, half tumbling down from a shell that had
shattered its side. There was a bench there, where they could lay the
wounded man, however. He stooped over the big mangled body, joking with
him,--it was the best comfort to Pat to give him a chance to show how
little he cared for the surgeon's knife,--glancing now and then at the
pearly embankment of clouds in the south, or at the delicate locust-boughs
in black and shivering tracery against the moonlight, trying to shut his
ears to the unceasing under-current of moans that reached him in the
silence.

Seeing him there with his lantern and instruments, they brought him one
wounded man after another, to whom he gave what aid he could, and then
despatched them in the army-wagons, looking impatiently after Dan, in his
search for the Captain. He had not known before how much he cared for
McKinstry, with a curious protecting care. Other men in the army were more
his chums than Mac, but they were coarse, able to take care of themselves.
Mac was like that simple-hearted old Israelite in whom there was no guile.
In the camp he had been perpetually imposed on by his men,--giving them
treats of fresh beef and bread, and tracts at the same time. They laughed
at him, but were oddly fond of him; he was a sharp disciplinaria