“We’ll see that you’re first old man,” said Langdon.  “It’s not more than a half-hour now.”

But Harry reeled in his saddle.  The singular weakness that he had felt a while back returned, and the road grew dark before him.  With a mighty effort he steadied himself in the saddle and St. Clair heard him say in a fierce undertone:  “I will go through with it!” St. Clair looked across at Langdon and the signaling look of Happy Tom replied.  They drew in just a little closer.  Now and then they talked to him sharply and briskly, rousing him again and again from the lethargy into which he was fast sinking.

“Look!  In the woods over there, Harry!” exclaimed St. Clair.  “See the men stretched asleep on the grass!  They’re the survivors of Pickett’s brigades that charged at Gettysburg.”

“And I was there!” said Harry.  “I saw the greatest charge ever made in the history of the world!”

He reeled a little toward St. Clair, who caught him by the shoulder and straightened him in the saddle.

“Of course you had a pleasant, easy ride from the Potomac,” said Happy Tom, “but I don’t understand how as good a horseman as you lost your horse.  I suppose he ran away while you were picking berries by the roadside.”

“Me pick berries by the roadside, while I’m on such a mission!” exclaimed Harry indignantly, rousing himself up until his eyes flashed, which was just what Happy wished.  “I didn’t see any berries!  Besides I didn’t start on a horse.  I left in a boat.”

“A boat?  Now, Harry, I know you’ve turned romancer.  I guess your mystic troubles with the owl—­if you really saw an owl—­have been a sort of spur to your fancy.”

“Do you mean to say, Tom Langdon, that I didn’t see an owl and talk with him?  I tell you I did, and his conversation was a lot more intelligent than yours, even if it was unpleasant.”

“Of course it was,” said St. Clair.  “Happy’s chief joy in life is talking.  You know how he chatters away, Harry.  He hates to sleep, because then he loses good time that he might use in talk.  I’ll wager you anything against anything, Harry, that when the Angel Gabriel blows his horn Happy will rise out of his grave, shaking his shroud and furious with anger.  He’ll hold up the whole resurrection while he argues with Gabriel that he blew his horn either too late or too early, or that it was a mighty poor sort of a horn anyhow.”

“I may do all that, Harry,” said Happy, “but Arthur is sure to be the one who will raise the trouble about the shroud.  You know how finicky he is about his clothes.  He’ll find fault with the quality of his shroud, and he’ll say that it’s cut either too short or too long.  Then he’ll insist, while all the billions wait, on draping the shroud in the finest Greek or Roman toga style, before he marches up to his place on the golden cloud and receives his harp.”

Harry laughed.

“That’ll be old Arthur, sure,” he said.  Then his head drooped again.  Fatigue was overpowering him.  St. Clair and Langdon put a hand on either shoulder and held him erect, but Harry was so far sunk in lethargy that he was not conscious of their grasp.  Men looked curiously at the three young officers riding rapidly forward, the one in the center apparently held on his horse by the other two.