strength, now maimed, some of them for life, some of them marked
for death, and one ghastly form already cold and rigid, covered by
a blood-stained sheet At one side they beheld an army surgeon with
his sleeves rolled up, but, notwithstanding this precaution,
smeared with blood, kneeling over a poor fellow who lay upon a
truss of hay, and probing his shoulder to trace and, if possible,
extract a bullet that had deeply penetrated.

"Why, Jim Larkins, is that you?" exclaimed Zenas, recognizing an
old neighbour and recent schoolfellow.

"Yes, Zenas, all that's left of me. I won't fight no more for one
while, I guess," he answered, as he moaned with agony as the
doctor probed the wound.

"Give him a drink," said the doctor, and Zenas, as tenderly as a
girl, supported his head and held to his parched lips a mug of
cold and refreshing tea.

"Blessings on the kind heart that sent that," said the wounded
man.

"It was Kate," said Zenas.

"I knowed it must be," murmured Jim, who was one of her rustic
admirers. "Tell her," he continued, in the natural egotism of
suffering, "she never did a better deed. Heaven reward her for
it."

Zenas thought of the benediction pronounced on the cup of cold