But a single look relieved his fears and explained the situation to him. The village was a-buzz with hurrying men. They were pouring out of houses and barns like ants from a hill in an excited swarm. The Confederates had evidently just discovered the meaning of the Federal ruse and the fact that the two regiments which had attacked them were again on the march. Wherefore, to seize at least a remnant of glory from the day of defeats, the Confederate leader was taking his men in pursuit of the withdrawing regiments in the hope of overhauling and thrashing them before they could come up with the remainder of the demi-corps, which had now passed out of sight. At such a moment the capture or killing of three fugitive Yankees was too trivial a matter to think of. The village was emptied with incredible speed. The hut’s occupants were as devoid of danger as they were devoid of reasonable chance, by this move on the part of the enemy, of rescue. Dad explained this in a dozen words to Jimmie as they laid Joseph’s body on a truckle bed in the half-furnished front room of the cottage. “We’ve got to tend to him ourselves,” he ended. “We can’t carry him, wounded like this, to headquarters. It might kill him. If there was just someone here who understood something more than we do about nursing--” “There is!” spoke up Jimmie. “What?” “When that general of yours hustled all the guns and the baggage along he left the two biggest wagons to follow. I know why, too. They’re Red Cross wagons. Volunteer nurses, sawbones, and all that sort of thing. They’re immune from getting shot or nabbed. So he didn’t clog up the ‘rush’ baggage with ’em. “I got all that while I was waiting for leave to go ahead with my drum. They can’t be over a mile or so off. They’ll be on that main road over yonder somewhere.” “Go and find one of the wagons if you can,” ordered Dad. “Beg a nurse and a surgeon--both, if you can, and get back as quickly as possible. You’ve got a good head, son, to remember all that. It’s the real man who stores up petty details and makes use of them. Hurry! “Wait!” he exclaimed, the memory of a woman’s chance words flashing athwart his mind. “Wait! She--she said she might become a nurse. Ask if there is a Mrs. Sessions--remember the name--_Sessions_--in the corps of nurses there. If there is, ask if she can be detailed for this work!” Jimmie was gone. Dad turned back to the couch and loosened the throat of his son’s jacket and shirt. Joseph had grown thinner and darker and older this past year. The smugly self-sufficient look seemed gone from his face, as his father bent solicitously to scan it. Dad’s hands ran over his body in search of the wound. The graze on the wrist was a mere nothing. But a spent ball had struck the shoulder and, without piercing the skin, had snapped the shoulder-blade by its impact--one of the most painful and least perilous of injuries.