ington Babe turned out as fresh and natty as if he had been a month in camp, instead of two on the road.

"Come, Major," he said, linking his arm through the arm of the Topographical officer, "let's go into the town and get a good breakfast."

Somehow, there was no refusing the boy, and so into the town they went, the jaunty aide and the Maker of Maps, electing their bill of fare as they walked, and rioting in a spicy dream of food and drink.

The first restaurant they came to was packed with soldiers clamoring and jostling each other, and go where they would the thirsty and hungry soldier was before them. The hotels were in a like stage of siege by the outside mob, which chafed and chaffed as it waited for the inside mob to dribble out.

The Major was in despair.
Babe was amused.

Presently they turned into a wide, shaded avenue in view of an imposing mansion standing well back on an emerald lawn.

"Major," said Babe, deliberately stopping to admire the grounds, "that's a very attractive place. We'll take our breakfast there."

"Impossible!" cried the Major. "How can we impose ourselves upon these highly respectable people!"

"I've never met any people too respectable to be agreeable to me," said Babe, settling his neck in his woollen shirt-collar. "Come along.".

The Major refused firmly. The very proposition was appalling, and, regardless of his keen appetite and the entreaties of his friend, he turned sadly in the direction of camp. Babe looked regretfully for a moment at the Major's retreating back, and, then turning, he walked briskly up to the house, between the borders of box, and rang the bell.

Babe smiled blandly on the colored man who opened the door. "Present my compliments to your mistress," he said, "and say to her that Lieutenant Highchester, of Boston, will be pleased to take breakfast with her."

It was the last the two officers saw of each other for more than a year, for the maker of maps, in the discharge of his official duties, was ignominiously gobbled

that very day, and so it fell out that while Lieutenant Highchester breakfasted in luxury, the Major went away hungry, and fell straightway into a captivity where cumulative hunger was the rule.

The Major was conservative and accepted the conditions of imprisonment with a bad grace. A year and more in which he never once rose superior to his environment told on the Major's health. He lacked the faculty of making friends, and led a solitary life in the midst of a multitude. It was the same wherever the prisoners went. In the new camp there was more room for isolation, and the Major lived alone under a ragged blanket, cooking his poor ration in a borrowed frying pan, and making sorry maps with a stick in the thin ashes on the burnt-out turf before his tent. In fair weather, he dragged himself about in a listless way, and wondered at the levity and high spirits of fellows as ragged and destitute as himself. Sometimes he contemplated at a respectful distance the wealth of the three colonels who owned a soapstone griddle. He withdrew, however, as soon as he perceived that he was in a crowd, while the crowd itself stood fast and even grew in size as it followed the soapstone griddle from mess to mess of officers in the high set of the three colonels.

The six naval officers who had been captured by cavalry in the narrow windings of the Rappahannock, and graciously permitted to retain their gold-laced coats and white duck trousers, and who breakfasted late, as became their dignity, were the last to use the soapstone griddle in the presence of the largest crowd of the forenoon. The Major was hopelessly outside of the high circle of the soapstone griddle, which in Camp Sorghum was the "Order of the Garter," the "Yellow Jacket," and the " Iron Cross" rolled into one.

In a year and more, the Maker of Maps had grown thin and old before his time. His coat was shabby, his beard was long and tangled, and his feet were bare. The monotony of the ration had begun to tell on his digestion. As he expressed it, it was burning his heart out. His eyes were glassy and his movements listless, and on a certain morning in October, after he had drawn his allowance for the day, he crept back under his blanket with an increased

loathing for such food. The double handful of corn-meal lay on an old handkerchief, and the poultice of molasses was red in the bottom of his battered tin cup. It made him ill to look at these things, and he left them outside to be dealt with respectively by the wind and the flies.

Elsewhere small fires were starting up in every direction, and a thin odor of resinous smoke drifted hazily in the sunshine across the old field. Officers in shabby and faded uniforms, mostly without any insignia of rank, were bending over their fires, while others equally picturesque and uncombed were bringing water in cups and canteens-now that the guard line had been extended by an extra loop which included a hairy cart track down to the ford where it crossed the branch in the hollow. On either side of the grass-grown ruts dusty paths flanked the old road, worn by the incessant tread of water-carriers with bare feet and broken shoes. All about where the Major lay hovels of earth and shelters of blanket blotched the ground like mud-colored warts, broken here and there by the foundation walls of a log hut, or the beginning of a stick chimney. He was nearest to the southern border of the camp, where some pyramids of dark cedar overhung the dead line and the forlorn guards beyond tramping ceaselessly.

The Major could shut his eyes on these unpleasant objects, but it was not so easy to close his nose to the odor of smoke and scorched meal, or exclude from his ears the hum of many voices.

Away across camp, in the direction of the official entrance, there was an unusual clamor, and the faint cry of "fresh fish" reached the Major where he lay. He was not disturbed by this or by the idle officers hurrying past toward the geographical point called the gate. An hour passed. An unwilling line was forming through the centre of the camp. A guard in a gray uniform prodded the Major out of his shelter, and ordered him into the ranks to be counted. Men were driven up from the fires only to steal back to their cooking as soon as the guard's back was turned. Others slipped down the line and were counted twice. To the exasperated confederates, the prisoners were sixteen hundred-more or less.

bed uncounted, but his attention was drawn to a crowd of officers surging about a tall figure. The smiling face beaming over the heads about it electrified the Major. One of the six naval heroes was holding the new-comer in conversation, and the three colonels of the soapstone griddle stood at a little distance, anxiously awaiting the news from the outside world.

The vigor of the Major's progress surprised himself, and before he had quite reached the rim of the crowd he swung his old cap and screamed the one word, Babe!" The "fresh fish" dropped the naval officer. The crowd parted like the waves before Pharaoh, and the Major fell into the arms of the young giant. The Major's mind must have been on breakfasts in "God's country," for presently he murmured an inquiry as to how Babe had fared that last morning in Covington. Between weakness and excitement the old fellow was on the border of fainting. Something Babe replied about waffles revived him for an instant, and then he collapsed altogether in the embrace of his friend.

Not many knew him, but one went forward to show the way, and Babe followed, with the Major like an infant in arms, down to his poor quarters. The Major was himself again before they got there, and sat by while Babe unslung a well-filled haversack and spread his own blankets for a better bed. The Major lay down with the contentment of pampered weakness, and Babe stood up to take an inventory of his surroundings.

The double handful of meal lay on the old rag, and the flies were swarming over the poultice of molasses.

It was all new and strange to Babe, and it puzzled and flattered him not a little that the barefooted officers persisted in calling him Captain. It might be a measure of deference paid to his cleaner clothing. He was certainly smarter in appearance than the majority of the prisoners, and for the moment it did not occur to him that his blouse was innocent of shoulder-straps. The next morning Babe drew their joint ration from a mild-eyed young man with a red beard and two rows of buttons on the breast of his faded blue coat.

"Good-morning, Colonel," said Babe, with that tentative courtesy which was an unwritten law of the camp where two rows were in evidence.

He had learned some things about prison etiquette in an incredibly short space of time.

"Good-morning, Captain," returned the other, glancing at the one row on Babe's front. Neither had any shoulder-straps, and each was fencing against underestimating the other's rank.

The possible Colonel said that it was the prevailing custom to make the meal into flapjacks and help them down with the molasses.

For that morning Babe borrowed a frying-pan, and the next day he cast his canteen into the fire and watched the cloth cover shrivel up and the solder melt, and the two concave halves of tin fall apart. To one of these he fitted a handle made of a split stick. This was also the prevailing custom.

Babe had on his person a few blue bills which he spent recklessly for the Major's betterment. At the time of his capture he had dismembered his field-glass and distributed it over his person, leaving only the empty leather case at his back. Now that he had arrived safely in Camp Sorghum, he reassembled the parts and bar

tered the glass at the geographical gate for a pair of stout leather shoes. The shoes certainly added to the Major's dignity, but they were not the pair that Babe had at first selected, and so, in the final exchange, he had retained the leather case which otherwise would have gone with the binoculars. This open-handed generosity of Babe rapidly dissipated his capital for barter and exchange, and he and the Major were soon reduced to the common level of corn-meal and molasses. In the process, however, the Major's health had improved wonderfully. His color and his good spirits had returned in the society of his resourceful companion. The two slept in warm blankets under a roof of tent cloth, which had taken the place of the old, tattered rag.

In the meantime, however, the three colonels had built for themselves a loghouse, with a roof of pine shingles and a chimney of sticks and mud. The six naval officers, too, were constructing a sort of sea bungalow, between a cook's galley and a first-class cabin, and thus, in two messes, the passing of the soapstone griddle was already secluded from the rude gaze of the rabble. Other squads were engaged in building, for it was not difficult to get an axe at headquarters and a parole to go outside into the timber.

With all his improvement, the Major was not yet in condition to carry logs, and Babe's strength, single handed, was not sufficient to begin the work of construction. Perhaps there might be some better way to compass their needs. Whatever may have passed through Babe's mind at this time, he observed the progress of the improvements with an unruffled brow. He had been used to moving in the very upper crust of society and to the enjoyment, even there, of more than his share of popularity, and to be outside the Order of the Soapstone Griddle evidently piqued him. The Major went so far as to hint that his young friend had, at last, arrived in an atmosphere where his usual tactics would not avail him. It looked as if the Major was right, for although Babe's superior address enabled him to borrow almost anything else in camp, the coveted griddle was beyond the charm of his diplomacy. He had applied three times, in his very best manner, successively to Colonel Black,

Colonel White and Colonel Green. Colonel Black had refused his appeal politely but firmly. Colonel White had been more crisp and short in his refusal, and Colonel Green had treated the young man with such scant courtesy as he thought his persistence merited. Each of the colonels called him Mister Babe, as if he were addressing one of his own subalterns of the line.

One night the Major and Babe sat before their small fire of sticks. It was November now, and the evenings were chilly. At a little distance in front of them, the mass of the house of the Colonels rose against the low horizon, its chimney wreathed in smoke, and the cheerful firelight streaming through the chinks in the logs. The Major looked on the house with something of the feeling with which a poor man regards the palace of a millionnaire, and with an additional chagrin which came of a passing acquaintance with the owners. "That's a very attractive looking place," drawled Babe. "I wish we could induce Their Shoulder Straps to build one for us."

This speech and the manner of its delivery whirled the Major back to Covington in a cloud and left him there, so far as any reply was concerned. The Major retired first and lay for a long time in his blanket, comfortably blinking at the fire and at the tall figure of Babe sitting over it.

The very next day Lieutenant Highchester was missing. The fact concerned no one but the Major, who was worried in the afternoon and in distress before nightfall. His agitation was redoubled when the great storm broke over the camp. As near as he could learn, by diligent inquiry, Babe had been last seen just before high noon, carrying bundles of fagots from the guard line as they were thrown across by a party of officers out on parole. This was a favorite ruse of uneasy spirits when they meditated escape.

The guards had grown amiable of late, and even sociable during the day. Under the new system of parole they had come to talk more and shoot less. Their condition was scarcely more desirable than that of the prisoners. Their fare was no better, and their duties were onerous. Some were exceedingly old; some were surprisingly young; and all were credulous and easily

duped by the superior intelligence of the prisoners, some of whom escaped almost daily in the confusion of carrying wood across the dead line.

The Major found one officer who' thought he had seen Babe outside in the timber. Ordinarily the Major would have rejoiced at Babe's escape, but it hurt him to think that his friend had left him so cavalierly, and a sadder man than the Maker of Maps was not to be found within the circle of the tramping guards that night.

In the morning the meal and molasses had suddenly grown hateful to him again, and he left his uncooked ration outside his quarters, very much as he had done on a certain occasion before. This time, however, instead of lying down in despair, he threaded his way between the shelters and hovels to the opposite side of the camp, to discuss the situation with a friend. It was just nine o'clock when the Major started, and the new guard line had already been established to include the cart-track and the heaps of pine-boughs which lay on the slope between the camp and the water. The inner guard had not been withdrawn, for the usual morning crowd of officers with cups and canteens was still held in check on the road by the wood-pile. The Major had advanced slowly, as became his gloomy mood, and in his deliberate progress he had disposed of twenty minutes of heavy time, so that he had barely reached his destination when he heard cheering from his own side of camp. Cheering for this or that idle reason, or for nothing ascertainable, was a daily occurrence; but in this case the shouting increased in volume with startling rapidity. Half the camp was running and cheering, and the other half was streaming in that direction to learn the cause of the excitement. It must be the news of exchange, at last. Even the Major ran as he returned. was a clear, cool morning, and the current of air, drifting across the field, met the Major as he ran. Presently, as he inhaled the crisp breeze, his nostrils detected a familiar salt odor. It was faint, but pungent, and the first sniff of it filled him with a longing for broiled ham. Many times he had lain, with closed eyes, and imagined what he would order if ever he should have the opportunity to despoil the menu of a

It

The three Colonels had mounted to the roof of their house, where they sat, largeeyed and wistful, astride the ridge-pole. The naval officers, for want of rope-ladders to go higher, had stopped on the taffrail of their uncompleted structure, staring, wide-legged, as if they sighted a wreck in a storm. When the Major could advance no farther, he began to cheer with the rest—he hardly knew why. It was a generous jubilation on his part over some unknown comrade's good luck; or had bacon possibly been added to the ration? Everybody about him was shouting and guying. Nobody would tell him anything coherent. He inhaled and was silent.

An

Then it was that the calm face of Babe appeared above the centre of the throng, wreathed in smoke from the spluttering half canteen on the end of the forked stick. From him and from his cooking rose the incense that intoxicated. oyster couldn't have looked more cool and unconcerned than Babe, with his cap pushed back from his forehead, and his woollen shirt gaping at the throat. He turned a deaf ear to such cries as "Where did you get it, sonny?" "Shake the spider," and "What's the matter with the leather case?"—and ranged his eyes over the heads about him in search of his messmate.

When the Major had first caught sight of Babe he had forgotten for an instant his craving for bacon in the great joy he felt at having him back again. The crowd parted to let the Major in, and never began to disperse or cease its good-natured banter until the Maker of Maps had devoured the last crumb of the flapjack, crisply browned on the half canteen, and well saturated with ham fat.

II

ON the morning before, Babe had busied himself carrying up wood from the guard line, just as the Major had heard.

For some time he continued to lug away the bundles of fagots which the paroled officers outside threw past the sentry. In this work he mingled with a crowd of men similarly engaged, and presently he made himself agreeable to the verdant young soldier on post, whom he easily convinced that he belonged outside, having only stepped across to secure the wood he and his party had been gathering.

And so, with the consent of the soldier, Babe crossed the line and pushed his way into the scrubby forest over the pineneedles, with the comforting sense that he was his own master. When he had got beyond the sound of the axes, and found himself quite alone in the forest, he crept under a heap of boughs in the top of a fallen tree, and prepared to wait for the darkness.

No other officer had ever come out with seemingly so trivial a purpose. All who had escaped before him had taken their way toward the sea-coast, or in the direction of the western mountains. If the Major had been in condition to travel, Babe would gladly have taken the same

course.

The afternoon was clear and warm for November, with an unseasonable heat which proved a weather breeder, for the wind was already backing into the east and muttering ominously in the tops of the tall pines. Night fell a full half hour before its time, and, with the first gloom in the forest, tiny lances of sleet clattered on the dead leaves and rebounded from the scaly armor of the trees. The great limbs tossed and creaked in the blast, and the sleet turned to sheeted rain which froze as it fell. It beat through the shelter of boughs, wetting Babe to the skin, and then stiffened his clothing where he lay. Great trees uprooted by the tempest fell with a resounding crash in the forest. Inaction was almost unendurable to the strong man half frozen under the shelter of boughs, and the time seemed interminable before the the storm had spent its fury.

When at last he did emerge from his hiding place, and stretch his stiffened limbs, the rain was falling at a milder angle.

It was tedious groping his way through the wind-tossed woods, but once on the high road he ran for a long distance, with