A soft aureola with gleaming radiations, a low, shadowy chamber, a beast feeding from a manger, and within it a child's golden head. His heart gave a great throb. Somehow he was smitten to his knees. Christmas Eve! He remembered the day with a rush of emotion. He stared again at the vouchsafed vision. He rubbed his eyes. It had changed. Only hallucination caused by an abrupt transition from darkness to light; only the most mundane facts of the old troughs and ash-hoppers, relics of the industry that had served the hideous carnage of battle; only the yellow head of the ranger's brat, who had climbed into one of them, from which the mare was calmly munching her corn. [Illustration: Yet this was Christmas Eve 201] Yet this was Christmas Eve. And the Child did lie in a manger. Perhaps it was well for him that his ignorant faith could accept the illusion as a vision charged with all the benignities of peace on earth, good-will toward men. With a keen thrill in his heart, on his knees he drew the charge from his rifle, and flung it down a rift in the rocks. “Chrismus Eve,” he murmured. He leaned his empty weapon against the wall, and strode out to the little girl who was perched up on the trough. “Chrismus gift, Cunnel!” he cried, cheerily. “Ter-morrer's Chrismus.” The echoes caught the word. In vibratory jubilance they repeated it. “Chrismus!” rang from the roof, scintillating with calcspar; “Chrismus!” sounded from the colonnade of stalactites that hung down to meet the uprising stalagmites; “Chrismus!” repeated the walls incrusted with roses that, shut in from the light and the fresh air of heaven, bloomed forever in the stone. Was ever chorus so sweet as this? It reached Tobe Gryce, who stood at his improvised corn-bin. With a bundle of fodder still in his arms he stepped forward. There beside the little Colonel and the black mare he beheld a man seated upon an inverted half-bushel measure, peacefully lighting his pipe with a bunch of straws which he kindled at the lantern on the ash-hopper. The ranger's black eyes were wide with wonder at this intrusion, and angrily flashed. He connected it at once with the attack on the stable. The hair on his low forehead rose bristlingly as he frowned. Yet he realized with a quaking heart that he was helpless. He, although the crack shot of the county, would not have fired while the Colonel was within two yards of his mark for the State of Tennessee. He stood his ground with stolid courage--a target. Then, with a start of surprise, he perceived that the intruder was unarmed. Twenty feet away his rifle stood against the wall. Tobe Gryce was strangely shaken. He experienced a sudden revolt of credulity. This was surely a dream. “Ain't that thar Luke Todd? Why air ye a-wait-in' thar?” he called out in a husky undertone. Todd glanced up, and took his pipe from his mouth; it was now fairly alight. “Kase it be Chrismus Eve, Tobe,” he said, gravely.