One of the first regiments to dash past into the hell of shot and shell was Beverly's. He had noticed, as people will notice trivial things in the midst of great crises, a board nailed to a tree. When the battle was over he had searched for his brother's regiment. At last he had found it, but Roy was not there. Some one said he had fallen, others said he had been captured just before the relief came--"Right up there by the challenge--by the tree." Beverly rode back toward the hill, sick and faint at heart. He wondered, with a thrill of superstitious fear, if that board was to be a sort of grave-mark for his brother, and if that was the reason he had noticed the ridiculous challenge at such a time. He would go back to the mark and search for his brother. He got down from his horse and tied him to the tree. The challenge was still there. He had no heart to read it, but started on his sickening search. Face after face that he knew--boys from the old college--looked up at him--some, alas, with stark, unseeing eyes, and others who begged for help. Boys he had in the old days cared for with youthful fervor, and yet they seemed as nothing to him now; he must not lose time--he must find his brother. Again and again he turned a bloody face upward only to exclaim, "Thank God!" when he did not know the features. Oh, the infinite selfishness of Love! The toy it makes of our human sympathies! The contraction it pats upon our generosity of soul! The limitations it sets upon our helpfulness! When twilight came Beverly was still searching for his brother, and thanking God, in the face of every mangled form, that it was the face of some other man's brother--some other mother's son! He returned to the camp for a light. He could not wait until morning to be sure that Roy was captured. He hoped and prayed that it might be so, but he must know. No report had come to the regiment. Roy had not been found or recognized. Beverly went hastily through the hospital tents. Roy had not been brought in. The search on the field began again--the search for his brother. The relief corps were working heroically. Men with stretchers passed and repassed him, and still Beverly looked in vain. He turned his dark lantern on the stretchers as they approached him, and sighed with relief as each passed on. He came to the spot where the little church had stood, now dismantled and wrecked by shell.