“Still nutty,” said Grafton to himself.

Further on was a camp of insurgents—­little, thin, brown fellows, ragged, dirty, shoeless—­each with a sugar-loaf straw hat, a Remington rifle of the pattern of 1882, or a brand new Krag-Jorgensen donated by Uncle Sam, and the inevitable and ever ready machete swinging in a case of embossed leather on the left hip.  Very young they were, and very old; and wiry, quick-eyed, intelligent, for the most part and, in countenance, vivacious and rather gentle.  There was a little creek next, and, climbing the bank of the other side, Grafton stopped short, with a start, in the road.  To the right and on a sloping bank lay eight gray shapes, muffled from head to foot, and Grafton would have known that all of them were in their last sleep, but one, who lay with his left knee bent and upright, his left elbow thrust from his blanket, and his hand on his heart.  He slept like a child.

Beyond was the camp of the regulars who had taken part in the fight.  On one side stood a Colonel, who himself had aimed a Hotchkiss gun in the last battle—­covered with grime and sweat, and with the passion of battle not quite gone from his eyes; and across the road soldiers were digging one long grave.  Grafton pushed on a little further, and on the top of the ridge and on the grassy sunlit knoll was the camp of the Riders, just beyond the rifle-pits from which they had driven the Spaniards.  Under a tree to the right lay another row of muffled shapes, and at once Grafton walked with the Colonel to the hospital, a quarter of a mile away.  The path, thickly shaded and dappled with sunshine, ran along the ridge through the battlefield, and it was as pretty, peaceful, and romantic as a lovers’ walk in a garden.  Here and there, the tall grass along the path was pressed flat where a wounded man had lain.  In one place, the grass was matted and dark red; nearby was a blood-stained hat marked with the initials “E.  L.”  Here was the spot where the first victim of the fight fell.  A passing soldier, who reluctantly gave his name as Blackford, bared his left arm and showed the newspaper man three places between his wrist and elbow where the skin had been merely blistered by three separate bullets as he lay fighting unseen enemies.  Further on, lay a dead Spaniard, with covered face.

“There’s one,” said the Colonel, with a careless gesture.  A huge buzzard flapped from the tree over the dead man as they passed beneath.  Beyond was the open-air hospital, where two more rigid human figures, and where the wounded lay—­white, quiet, uncomplaining.

And there a surgeon told him how the wounded had lain there during the fight singing: 

    “My Country, ’tis of thee!”

And Grafton beat his hands together, while his throat was full and his eyes were full of tears.  To think what he had missed—­to think what he had missed!