Dick was awed. Like many another his brain exposed to such tremendous pressure for two or three days, was not quite normal. It was quickly heated and excited by fancies, and time and place alone were enough to weigh down even the coolest and most seasoned. He pressed close to his Confederate friends, whose names he never knew, and who never knew his, and they, feeling the same influence, never for an instant left the man who held the lantern. The muttering thunder now came closer and broke in terrible crashes. The lightning flashed again and again so vividly that Dick, with involuntary motion, threw up his hands to shelter his eyes. But he could see before him the mournful forest, where so many good men had fallen, and, turned red in the gleam of the lightning, it was more terrifying than it had been in the mere black of the night. The wind, too, was now blowing, and the forest gave forth what Dick's ears turned into a long despairing wail. “She's about to bust,” said the lantern bearer, looking up at the menacing sky. “Jim, you'll have to take your wettin' as it comes.” A moment later the storm burst in fact. The rain rushed down on them, soaking them through in an instant, but Dick, so far from caring, liked it. It cooled his heated body and brain, and he knew that it was more likely to help than hurt the wounded who yet lay on the ground. The lightning ceased before the sweep of the rain, but the lantern was well protected by its glass cover, and they still searched. The lantern bearer suddenly uttered a low cry. “Boys!” he said, “Here's Sam!” A thick and uncommonly powerful man lay doubled up against a bush. His face was white. Dick saw that blood had just been washed from it by the rain. But he could see no rising and falling of the chest, and he concluded that he was dead. “Take the lantern, Jim,” said the leader. Then he knelt down and put his finger on his brother's wrist. “He ain't dead,” he said at last. “His pulse is beatin' an' he'll come to soon. The rain helped him. Whar was he hit? By gum, here it is! A bullet has ploughed all along the side of his head, runnin' 'roun' his skull. Here, you Yank, did you think you could kill Sam by shootin' him in the head with a bullet? We've stood him up in front of our lines, and let you fellows break fifty pound shells on his head. You never done him no harm, 'cept once when two solid shot struck him at the same time an' he had a headache nigh until sundown. Besides havin' natural thickness of the skull Sam trained his head by buttin' with the black boys when he was young.” Dick saw that the man really felt deep emotion and was chattering, partly to hide it. He was glad that they had found his brother, and he helped them to lift him. Then they rubbed Sam's wrists and poured a stimulant down his throat. In a few minutes he stood alone on his feet, yawned mightily, and by the light of the dim lantern gazed at them in a sort of stupid wonder. “What's happened?” he asked.