It was a beautiful little stream, the most beautiful in the world just then to Dick and his friends.

Clear and cold, the color of silver in the moonlight, it rushed down from the mountains.

On one side knelt the men in blue, and on the other the men in gray, and the pure water was like the elixir of heaven to their parched and burning throats.
Dick drank long, and then as he raised his face from the stream he saw opposite him a tall, lean youth, evidently from the far South, Louisiana perhaps, a lad with a tanned face and a wide mouth stretched in a friendly grin.
"Tastes good, doesn't it, Yank ?" he said.
"Yes, it does, Reb," replied Dick.

"I felt that I was drying up and just crumbling away like old dead wood.

As soon as the gallon that I've drunk has percolated thoroughly through my system I intend to hoist aboard another gallon." "I don't know what percolate means, but I reckon it has something to do with travelin' about through your system.