Champe seated himself upon the end of an oak log, and taking off his hat, ran his hand through his curling hair. “I was at home last summer on a furlough,” he remarked, “and I declare, I hardly knew the valley. If we ever come out of this war it will take an army with ploughshares to bring the soil up again. As for the woods--well, well, we'll never have them back in our day.” “Did you see Uplands?” asked Dan eagerly. “For a moment. It was hardly safe, you know, so I was at home only a day. Grandpa told me that the place had lain under a shadow ever since Virginia's death. She was buried in Hollywood--it was impossible to bring her through the lines they said--and Betty and Mrs. Ambler have taken this very hardly.” “And the Governor,” said Dan, with a tremor in his voice as he thought of Betty. “And Jack Morson,” added Champe, “he fell at Brandy Station when I was with him. At first he was wounded only slightly, and we tried to get him to the rear, but he laughed and went straight in again. It was a sabre cut that finished him at the last.” “He was a first-rate chap,” commented Dan, “but I never knew exactly why Virginia fell in love with him.” “The other fellow never does. To be quite candid, it is beyond my comprehension how a certain lady can prefer the infantry to the cavalry--yet she does emphatically.” Dan coloured. “Was grandpa well?” he inquired lamely. With a laugh Champe flung one leg over the other, and clasped his knee. “It's an ill wind that blows nobody good,” he responded. “Grandpa's thoughts are so much given to the Yankees that he has become actually angelic to the rest of us. By the way, do you know that Mr. Blake is in the army?” “What?” cried Dan, aghast. “Oh, I don't mean that he really carries a rifle--though he swears he would if he only had twenty years off his shoulders--but he has become our chaplain in young Chrysty's place, and the boys say there is more gun powder in his prayers than in our biggest battery.” “Well, I never!” exclaimed Dan. “You ought to hear him--it's better than fighting on your own account. Last Sunday he gave us a prayer in which he said: 'O Lord, thou knowest that we are the greatest army thou hast ever seen; put forth thy hand then but a very little and we will whip the earth.' By Jove, you look cosey here,” he added, glancing into the hut where Dan and Pinetop slept in bunks of straw. “I hope the roads won't dry before you've warmed your house.” He shook hands again, and swung off amid the renewed jeers that issued from the open doorways. Dan watched him until he vanished among the distant pines, and then, turning, went into the little hut where he found Pinetop sitting before a rude chimney, which he had constructed with much labour. A small book was open on his knee, over which his yellow head drooped like a child's, and Dan saw his calm face reddened by the glow of the great log fire. “Hello! What's that?” he inquired lightly.