This important military genius did not seem able, however, to throw much light upon the whereabouts of the two “missing” boys. From what I myself heard him say about the battle, and from what others reported of his talk, it seems that in the very early morning Hooker's line—a part of which consisted of Dearborn County men—moved forward through a big cornfield, the stalks of which were much higher than the soldiers' heads. When they came out, the rebels opened such a hideous fire of cannon and musketry upon them from the woods close by, that those who did not fall were glad to run back again into the corn for shelter. Thus all became confusion, and the men were so mixed up that there was no getting them together again. Some went one way, some another, through the tall corn-rows, and Warner Pitts could not remember having seen either Jeff or Byron at all after the march began. Parts of the regiment formed again out on the road toward the Dunker church, but other parts found themselves half a mile away among the fragments of a Michigan regiment, and a good many more were left lying in the fatal cornfield. Our boys had not been traced among the dead, but that did not prove that they were alive. And so we were no wiser than before. Warner Pitts only nodded in a distant way to me when he saw me first, with a cool “Hello, youngster!” I expected that he would ask after the folks at the farm which had been so long his home, but he turned to talk with someone else, and said never a word. Once, some days afterward, he called out as I passed him, “How's the old Copperhead?” and the Avery girl who was with him laughed aloud, but I went on without answering. He was already down in my black-books, in company with pretty nearly every other human being roundabout. This list of enemies was indeed so full that there were times when I felt like crying over my isolation. It may be guessed, then, how rejoiced I was one afternoon to see Ni Hagadorn squeeze his way through our orchard-bars, and saunter across under the trees to where I was at work sorting a heap of apples into barrels. I could have run to meet him, so grateful was the sight of any friendly, boyish face. The thought that perhaps after all he had not come to see me in particular, and that possibly he brought some news about Jeff, only flashed across my mind after I had smiled a broad welcome upon him, and he stood leaning against a barrel munching the biggest russet he had been able to pick out. “Abner to home?” he asked, after a pause of neighborly silence. He hadn't come to see me after all. “He's around the barns somewhere,” I replied; adding, upon reflection, “Have you heard something fresh?” Ni shook his sorrel head, and buried his teeth deep into the apple. “No, nothin',” he said, at last, with his mouth full, “only thought I'd come up an' talk it over with Abner.” The calm audacity of the proposition took my breath away. “He'll boot you off'm the place if you try it,” I warned him.