THE column that had butted stoutly at theobstacles in the roadway was barely out of theyouth's sight before he saw dark waves of mencome sweeping out of the woods and downthrough the fields. He knew at once that thesteel fibers had been washed from their hearts.They were bursting from their coats andtheir equipments as from entanglements. Theycharged down upon him like terrified buffaloes.

Behind them blue smoke curled and cloudedabove the treetops, and through the thickets hecould sometimes see a distant pink glare. Thevoices of the cannon were clamoring in intermi-nable chorus.

The youth was horrorstricken. He staredin agony and amazement. He forgot that hewas engaged in combating the universe. Hethrew aside his mental pamphlets on the philoso-phy of the retreated and rules for the guidanceof the damned.

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The fight was lost. The dragons were com-ing with invincible strides. The army, helplessin the matted thickets and blinded by the over-hanging night, was going to be swallowed. War,the red animal, war, the blood-swollen god, wouldhave bloated fill.

Within him something bade to cry out. Hehad the impulse to make a rallying speech, to singa battle hymn, but he could only get his tongue tocall into the air: "Why--why--what--what 'sth' matter?"

Soon he was in the midst of them. Theywere leaping and scampering all about him.Their blanched faces shone in the dusk. Theyseemed, for the most part, to be very burly men.The youth turned from one to another of them asthey galloped along. His incoherent questionswere lost. They were heedless of his appeals.They did not seem to see him.

They sometimes gabbled insanely. One hugeman was asking of the sky: "Say, where deplank road? Where de plank road!" It was as ifhe had lost a child. He wept in his pain anddismay.

Presently, men were running hither andthither in all ways. The artillery booming,forward, rearward, and on the flanks madejumble of ideas of direction. Landmarks hadvanished into the gathered gloom. The youthbegan to imagine that he had got into thecenter of the tremendous quarrel, and he couldperceive no way out of it. From the mouths ofthe fleeing men came a thousand wild questions,but no one made answers.

The youth, after rushing about and throwinginterrogations at the heedless bands of retreatinginfantry, finally clutched a man by the arm. Theyswung around face to face.

"Why--why--" stammered the youth strug-gling with his balking tongue.

The man screamed: "Let go me! Let gome!" His face was livid and his eyes were roll-ing uncontrolled. He was heaving and panting.He still grasped his rifle, perhaps having for-gotten to release his hold upon it. He tuggedfrantically, and the youth being compelled to leanforward was dragged several paces.

"Let go me! Let go me!"

"Why--why--" stuttered the youth.

"Well, then!" bawled the man in a luridrage. He adroitly and fiercely swung his rifle.It crushed upon the youth's head. The manran on.

The youth's fingers had turned to paste uponthe other's arm. The energy was smitten fromhis muscles. He saw the flaming wings of light-ning flash before his vision. There was a deaf-ening rumble of thunder within his head.

Suddenly his legs seemed to die. He sankwrithing to the ground. He tried to arise. Inhis efforts against the numbing pain he was like aman wrestling with a creature of the air.

There was a sinister struggle.

Sometimes he would achieve a position halferect, battle with the air for a moment, andthen fall again, grabbing at the grass. His facewas of a clammy pallor. Deep groans werewrenched from him.

At last, with a twisting movement, he gotupon his hands and knees, and from thence, like ababe trying to walk, to his feet. Pressing hishands to his temples he went lurching over thegrass.

He fought an intense battle with his body.His dulled senses wished him to swoon and heopposed them stubbornly, his mind portrayingunknown dangers and mutilations if he shouldfall upon the field. He went tall soldier fashion.He imagined secluded spots where he could falland be unmolested. To search for one he stroveagainst the tide of his pain.

Once he put his hand to the top of his headand timidly touched the wound. The scratchingpain of the contact made him draw a long breaththrough his clinched teeth. His fingers weredabbled with blood. He regarded them with afixed stare.

Around him he could hear the grumble ofjolted cannon as the scurrying horses were lashedtoward the front. Once, a young officer on abesplashed charger nearly ran him down. Heturned and watched the mass of guns, men, andhorses sweeping in a wide curve toward a gap ina fence. The officer was making excited motionswith a gauntleted hand. The guns followed theteams with an air of unwillingness, of beingdragged by the heels.

Some officers of the scattered infantry werecursing and railing like fishwives. Their scold-ing voices could be heard above the din. Intothe unspeakable jumble in the roadway rode asquadron of cavalry. The faded yellow of theirfacings shone bravely. There was a mightyaltercation.

The artillery were assembling as if for a con-ference.

The blue haze of evening was upon the field.The lines of forest were long purple shadows.One cloud lay along the western sky partlysmothering the red.

As the youth left the scene behind him, heheard the guns suddenly roar out. He imaginedthem shaking in black rage. They belched andhowled like brass devils guarding a gate. Thesoft air was filled with the tremendous remon-strance. With it came the shattering peal ofopposing infantry. Turning to look behind him,he could see sheets of orange light illumine theshadowy distance. There were subtle and suddenlightnings in the far air. At times he thought hecould see heaving masses of men.

He hurried on in the dusk. The day hadfaded until he could barely distinguish place forhis feet. The purple darkness was filled withmen who lectured and jabbered. Sometimes hecould see them gesticulating against the blue andsomber sky. There seemed to be a great ruck ofmen and munitions spread about in the forest andin the fields.

The little narrow roadway now lay lifeless.There were overturned wagons like sun-driedbowlders. The bed of the former torrent waschoked with the bodies of horses and splinteredparts of war machines.

It had come to pass that his wound pained himbut little. He was afraid to move rapidly, how-ever, for a dread of disturbing it. He held hishead very still and took many precautions againststumbling. He was filled with anxiety, and hisface was pinched and drawn in anticipation of thepain of any sudden mistake of his feet in thegloom.

His thoughts, as he walked, fixed intentlyupon his hurt. There was a cool, liquid feelingabout it and he imagined blood moving slowlydown under his hair. His head seemed swollento a size that made him think his neck to beinadequate.

The new silence of his wound made muchworriment. The little blistering voices of painthat had called out from his scalp were, hethought, definite in their expression of danger.By them he believed that he could measure hisplight. But when they remained ominouslysilent he became frightened and imagined ter-rible fingers that clutched into his brain.

Amid it he began to reflect upon variousincidents and conditions of the past. He be-thought him of certain meals his mother hadcooked at home, in which those dishes of whichhe was particularly fond had occupied prominentpositions. He saw the spread table. The pinewalls of the kitchen were glowing in the warmlight from the stove. Too, he remembered howhe and his companions used to go from the school-house to the bank of a shaded pool. He saw hisclothes in disorderly array upon the grass of thebank. He felt the swash of the fragrant waterupon his body. The leaves of the overhangingmaple rustled with melody in the wind of youth-ful summer.

He was overcome presently by a draggingweariness. His head hung forward and hisshoulders were stooped as if he were bearing agreat bundle. His feet shuffled along theground.

He held continuous arguments as to whetherhe should lie down and sleep at some near spot,or force himself on until he reached a certainhaven. He often tried to dismiss the question,but his body persisted in rebellion and his sensesnagged at him like pampered babies.

At last he heard a cheery voice near hisshoulder: "Yeh seem t' be in a pretty bad way,boy?"

The youth did not look up, but he assentedwith thick tongue. "Uh!"

The owner of the cheery voice took him firmlyby the arm. "Well," he said, with a roundlaugh, "I'm goin' your way. Th' hull gang isgoin' your way. An' I guess I kin give yeh alift." They began to walk like a drunken manand his friend.

As they went along, the man questioned theyouth and assisted him with the replies like onemanipulating the mind of a child. Sometimes heinterjected anecdotes. "What reg'ment do yehb'long teh? Eh? What's that? Th' 304th N'York? Why, what corps is that in? Oh, it is?Why, I thought they wasn't engaged t'-day--they 're 'way over in th' center. Oh, they was,eh? Well, pretty nearly everybody got theirshare 'a fightin' t'-day. By dad, I give myself upfer dead any number 'a times. There was shootin'here an' shootin' there, an' hollerin' here an'hollerin' there, in th' damn' darkness, until Icouldn't tell t' save m' soul which side I was on.Sometimes I thought I was sure 'nough fromOhier, an' other times I could 'a swore I wasfrom th' bitter end of Florida. It was th' mostmixed up dern thing I ever see. An' these herehull woods is a reg'lar mess. It'll be a miracleif we find our reg'ments t'-night. Pretty soon,though, we 'll meet a-plenty of guards an' provost-guards, an' one thing an' another. Ho! there theygo with an off'cer, I guess. Look at his handa-draggin'. He 's got all th' war he wants, I bet.He won't be talkin' so big about his reputationan' all when they go t' sawin' off his leg. Poorfeller! My brother 's got whiskers jest like that.How did yeh git 'way over here, anyhow? Yourreg'ment is a long way from here, ain't it? Well,I guess we can find it. Yeh know there was aboy killed in my comp'ny t'-day that I thoughtth' world an' all of. Jack was a nice feller. Byginger, it hurt like thunder t' see ol' Jack jest gitknocked flat. We was a-standin' purty peaceablefer a spell, 'though there was men runnin' ev'ryway all 'round us, an' while we was a-standin'like that, 'long come a big fat feller. He begant' peck at Jack's elbow, an' he ses: 'Say, where 'sth' road t' th' river?' An' Jack, he never paid noattention, an' th' feller kept on a-peckin' at hiselbow an' sayin': 'Say, where 's th' road t' th'river?' Jack was a-lookin' ahead all th' timetryin' t' see th' Johnnies comin' through th'woods, an' he never paid no attention t' this bigfat feller fer a long time, but at last he turned'round an' he ses: 'Ah, go t' hell an' find th'road t' th' river!' An' jest then a shot slappedhim bang on th' side th' head. He was a sergeant,too. Them was his last words. Thunder, I wishwe was sure 'a findin' our reg'ments t'-night. It 'sgoin' t' be long huntin'. But I guess we kindo it."

In the search which followed, the man of thecheery voice seemed to the youth to possess awand of a magic kind. He threaded the mazesof the tangled forest with a strange fortune. Inencounters with guards and patrols he displayedthe keenness of a detective and the valor of agamin. Obstacles fell before him and became ofassistance. The youth, with his chin still on hisbreast, stood woodenly by while his companionbeat ways and means out of sullen things.

The forest seemed a vast hive of men buzzingabout in frantic circles, but the cheery man con-ducted the youth without mistakes, until at lasthe began to chuckle with glee and self-satisfaction."Ah, there yeh are! See that fire?"

The youth nodded stupidly.

"Well, there 's where your reg'ment is. An'now, good-by, ol' boy, good luck t' yeh."

A warm and strong hand clasped the youth'slanguid fingers for an instant, and then he hearda cheerful and audacious whistling as the manstrode away. As he who had so befriended himwas thus passing out of his life, it suddenly oc-curred to the youth that he had not once seen hisface.