Carmichael peered through the window.

What a play yonder scene was to what he had been through! To break camp before dawn, before breakfast, rain and hail and snow smothering one; when the frost-bound iron of the musket caught one's fingers and tore the skin; the shriek of shot overhead, the boom of cannon and the gulp of impact; cold, hungry, footsore, sleepy; here and there a comrade crumpling up strangely and lying still and white; the muddy ruts in the road; the whole world a dead gray like the face of death! What did those yonder know of war?
The carriage stopped.
"I shall not intrude, I trust ?" said the old man, opening the door and getting in.
"Not now," replied Carmichael.

"What is all this about ?" "A trifle; I might say a damn-fool trifle.

But what did you mean when you said you knew all you wanted to know ?" The mountaineer showed some anxiety.
"Exactly what I said.

The only thing that confuses me is the motive." The old man thought for a while.