Dick had used just such an equipment since he was eight years old, in the little river at Pendleton, and now he was anxious to prove to himself that he had not lost his skill.

All three were as eager to catch a fish as they were to win a battle, and, for the time, the war was forgotten.

It seemed to Dick as he sat on the brown turf between the enclosing roots of the tree, and leaning against its trunk, that his lost youth had returned.

He was just a boy again, fishing and with no care save to raise something on his hook.

The wood, although small, was dense, and it shut out all view of the army.