The next day, with no very definite intention, with no dominant feeling that he could rightly have named, he again sought the spot.  Within a half-mile of it he met Bushrod Albro, a former playfellow and schoolmate, who greeted him warmly.

“I am going to visit my home,” said the soldier.

The other looked at him rather sharply, but said nothing.

“I know,” continued Lassiter, “that my folks have not changed, but—­ "

“There have been changes,” Albro interrupted—­“everything changes.  I’ll go with you if you don’t mind.  We can talk as we go.”

But Albro did not talk.

Instead of a house they found only fire-blackened foundations of stone, enclosing an area of compact ashes pitted by rains.

Lassiter’s astonishment was extreme.

“I could not find the right way to tell you,” said Albro.  “In the fight a year ago your house was burned by a Federal shell.”

“And my family—­where are they?”

“In Heaven, I hope.  All were killed by the shell.”

A BAFFLED AMBUSCADE

Connecting Readyville and Woodbury was a good, hard turnpike nine or ten miles long.  Readyville was an outpost of the Federal army at Murfreesboro; Woodbury had the same relation to the Confederate army at Tullahoma.  For months after the big battle at Stone River these outposts were in constant quarrel, most of the trouble occurring, naturally, on the turnpike mentioned, between detachments of cavalry.  Sometimes the infantry and artillery took a hand in the game by way of showing their good-will.

One night a squadron of Federal horse commanded by Major Seidel, a gallant and skillful officer, moved out from Readyville on an uncommonly hazardous enterprise requiring secrecy, caution and silence.

Passing the infantry pickets, the detachment soon afterward approached two cavalry videttes staring hard into the darkness ahead.  There should have been three.

“Where is your other man?” said the major.  “I ordered Dunning to be here to-night.”

“He rode forward, sir,” the man replied.  “There was a little firing afterward, but it was a long way to the front.”

“It was against orders and against sense for Dunning to do that,” said the officer, obviously vexed.  “Why did he ride forward?”

“Don’t know, sir; he seemed mighty restless.  Guess he was skeered.”

When this remarkable reasoner and his companion had been absorbed into the expeditionary force, it resumed its advance.  Conversation was forbidden; arms and accouterments were denied the right to rattle.  The horses’ tramping was all that could be heard and the movement was slow in order to have as little as possible of that.  It was after midnight and pretty dark, although there was a bit of moon somewhere behind the masses of cloud.

Two or three miles along, the head of the column approached a dense forest of cedars bordering the road on both sides.  The major commanded a halt by merely halting, and, evidently himself a bit “skeered,” rode on alone to reconnoiter.  He was followed, however, by his adjutant and three troopers, who remained a little distance behind and, unseen by him, saw all that occurred.