It was right that the man should die, but the shock of seeing him done to death was too much for Tom. Weakened by the fatigues and hardship of the long captivity during which he had been carried from Ohio to Virginia and worn out by the sufferings of life in Libby and by the toil of the tunnel, the boy collapsed when Jake Johnson did and for a few moments seemed as dead as the man was. He was taken to the hospital-room, but the hospital in Libby was usually only the anteroom of the graveyard at Libby. One of the scarcest things in the Confederacy, the home of scarcity, was a good doctor. The armies in the field needed far more doctors than there were in the whole South, at the outbreak of the war. Medical schools were quickly created, but the demand for doctors so far outran the supply that by this time ignorant country lads were being rushed through the schools, with reckless haste, so that they were graduated when they knew but little more than when they began. A so-called surgeon was handling his scalpel six months after he had been handling a plow. Some of them barely knew how to read and write. It was inevitable that the prison hospitals should be manned by the poorest of the poor among the graduates of these wretched schools. A fortunate chance, fortunate that is for Tom, gave him, however, care that was both skilful and tender. A few hours after the righteous execution of Jake Johnson there had been thrust into Libby a fresh group of prisoners, captured but fortyeight hours before. Among them towered a jovial, bearded giant, an army surgeon, Major Hans Rolf. Libby was ringing of course with talk of what had happened there that day. The new prisoners quickly heard of Johnson and of Tom Strong. Within an hour, Hans Rolf had given his parole not to try to escape and had been allowed to station himself beside Tom's bed. Through that night and through the next day, he fought Tom's battle for him, doing all that man could do. When the boy struggled out of his delirium and saw Rolf's kind eyes beaming upon him, his first thought was that he was still in the clutches of Wilkes Booth in the railroad car. His right hand plucked feebly at his left side, where he had then carried the dispatches Booth sought. Hans Rolf saw and understood the movement. "It's all right, Tom," he said. "Everything's all right. Go to sleep." And Tom, still a bit stupefied, thought everything was all right and that he was home in New York, with Rolf somehow or other there too. A gracious and beautiful Richmond woman, who gave her days to caring for her country's enemies, bent over him with a smile. The boy's eyes gleamed with a mistaken belief. * * * * * "Oh, Mother!" gasped Tom. He smiled back and sank gently into a profound sleep, from which he awoke to life and health. Again a Hans Rolf had saved a Tom Strong's life.