The wind fell and the rain ceased, but the broken and ragged clouds continued to scud across the starlit heavens. The twinkling camp-fires burned low. Drowsy officers sought the shelter of their tents. Privates rolled themselves in their blankets and, with their feet to the fading embers, fell asleep. Silence rested upon the camp—broken only by the faint murmur of voices here and there, or the restless pawing of some tethered steed. Beyond the barricade of wagons a double line of sentries was on guard. One by one Ross Douglas’s companions sought slumber. At last he alone remained sitting by the dying fire, his hand caressing the head of the bloodhound that lay stretched beside him. He was thinking of Amy—the girl he had left behind him. “Dear child!” he whispered to himself. “Perhaps I should not have left her as I did. Her lot will not be pleasant, I fear. But I couldn’t help it—I felt that duty called me. And already I have been able to render some slight service to my country. When I return to her, I’ll devote my life to her care and comfort——” He broke off suddenly and flung up his head, that had been resting upon his hand. The silence was disturbed by the voice of a man lustily singing: “I left my children in ol’ Kaintuck, In the cabin with the’r mother; And if the Injins kills the’r pap, They’ll never git another.” The words were lamely strung together; and their meaning was somewhat ambiguous. But Ross was in a sad mood; and the homely sentiment of the improvised song touched him. “Poor fellow!” the young scout muttered under his breath, as he arose and sauntered in the direction whence the voice came. “His words may be premonitory of the fate that awaits him.” After walking a few rods, he came upon the singer seated with his toes in the ashes of an expiring fire. “Hello, friend!” Ross cried cheerily. “You seem to be suffering from an attack of homesickness.” “Y-e-s, I am a little homesick,” the fellow admitted reluctantly. “You see, I left the little woman an’ the babies ’way down in ol’ Kaintuck. An’ sometimes I git to feelin’ that somehow I’ll never see ’em ag’in.”—And a sob was in his big, coarse voice.—“I thought ev’rybody was asleep an’ I’d jest sing a bit. Some people cries when they’re sad—_I_ sing. It always makes me feel better, too. Hope I didn’t wake you up with my bellerin’.” “Oh, no!” Douglas hastened to say. “I was awake. But probably both of us had better try to sleep; it is late.” “I s’pect we had,”—admitted the Kentuckian—and lapsed into silence. Ross retraced his steps to his own fire and lay down. But restlessness had possession of him. Again the voice of the singer fell upon his ears. This time Bright Wing opened wide his black eyes and sat erect; and Farley rolled over, grumbling sleepily: “Dodrot the critter! Can’t he quit his caterwaulin’ day n’r night? He ort to be off on a desert island by hisself.”