He hesitated no longer. Mounting his horse he continued down the hill so as to be screened from any possible observers, then struck off to his left to a belt of woods that extended well up to the vicinity of the grove. Making his way through this bit of forest, he soon came to an old wood-road partially grown up with bushes, and pushed his way rapidly back toward the point he wished to attain. Having approached the limits of the belt of woods, he tied his horse in a thicket, listened, then stole to the edge nearest the grove. It appeared deserted. Crouching along a rail fence with revolver in hand, he at last reached its fatal shade, and pushing through its fringe of lower growth, peered cautiously around. Here and there he saw a lifeless body or a struggling, wounded horse, over which the buzzards hovered, or on which they had already settled. Disgusting as was their presence, they reassured him, and he boldly and yet with an awful dread at heart began his search, scanning with rapid eye each prostrate form along the entire back edge of the grove through which the Union forces had burst in their swift retreat. He soon passed beyond all traces of conflict, and then retraced his steps, uttering half-unconsciously and in a tone of anguish his friend's name. As he approached what had been the extreme right of the Union line in their retreat, and their left in the advance, he beheld a dead horse that looked familiar. He sprang forward and saw that it was Hilland's. "Hilland! Warren!" he shouted, wild with awful foreboding. From a dense thicket near he heard a feeble groan. Rushing into it, he stumbled against the immense mossy trunk of a prostrate, decaying tree. Concealed beyond it lay his friend, apparently dying. "Oh, Warren!" he cried, "my friend, my brother, don't you know me? Oh, live, live! I can rescue you." There was no response from the slowly gasping man. Graham snatched a flask from his pocket and wet the pallid lips with brandy, and then caused Hilland to swallow a little. The stimulant kindled for a few moments the flame of life, and the dying man slowly became conscious. "Graham," he murmured feebly--"Graham, is that you?" "Yes, yes, and I'll save you yet. Oh, in the name of Grace, I adjure you to live." "Alas for Grace! My dream--will come true." "Oh, Hilland, no, no! Oh, that I could die in your place! What is my life to yours! Rally, Warren, rally. My fleet horse is tied near, or if you are too badly wounded I will stay and nurse you. I'll fire a pistol shot through my arm, and then we can be sent to the hospital together. Here, take more brandy. That's right. With your physique you should not think of death. Let me lift you up and stanch your wound." "Don't move me, Graham, or I'll bleed to death instantly, and--and--I want to look in your face--once more, and send my--true love to Grace. More brandy, please. It's getting light again. Before it was dark--oh, so dark! How is it you are here?"