As she proceeded she began to feel a sort of faintness, almost amounting to nausea, creeping over her and dreaded the long walk to the hospital, but decided to go on until she saw an armed man dressed in the uniform of the United States army; she wondered, at first, why she felt faint and almost sick, and, then, she realized that the offensive odors that assailed her sensitive olfactory nerves were those that rise when material bodies have been deprived of the higher life that gave them animation ... that the horrors of a bloody battle-field surrounded her, and, as she advanced slowly and with dreadful anticipation ... as she even stumbled over more than one unconscious form, that, only a few short hours before, had been as full of bounding life as she was then, she thought of what the suffering must be of those who lay among the dead, perhaps for weary, pain-filled hours, alive yet helpless; the thought was a terrific one for any tender-hearted woman to entertain, and Ruth had always been particularly thoughtful of the comfort of anyone who happened to be near to her, and, so, she soon became enthused with the idea that she might search among the heaps of dead and find, maybe, someone who lived and might, if he were rescued, yet be happy in the world she lived in, and, so, she softly called to see if anyone could hear her voice and guide her to the object of her search: "Are any here who are in need of earthly help?" she asked. "If any here can hear my voice, pray answer me and tell me where to come to find you." She waited for an answer but none came, at first; and then it seemed to her as if she heard a far-off whisper far away ... she listened breathlessly ... it came again and, then, she followed it until she found the one from whom the whisper came. He lay among a heap of bodies tossed about as if they had found death together; one whose body lay across his own, Ruth lifted, though she shuddered while she did it, for the stark, stiff form was that of one who'd, only lately, been as full of life as she was then; she laid it softly down and sought the one whose whisper she had heard; her hand crept up, along a rough and blood-soaked uniform, until it found a face and found it warm with sentient life; she was electrified by joy at finding one who lived among the dead, and hastened, then, to separate him from the other bodies lying all around him; it was as if they'd followed after him ... as if he'd been a leader of the rest ... for he was well in front of all of them and yet they were so near that, when they fell, they fell together, all around the one whose life she sought to save.