Approaching the bunk, and taking the patient’s hand, I found he had a raging fever.  But when I placed my hand upon his forehead, and felt the dreadful pustules thickly covering it, my heart almost ceased to beat.  An unreasoning terror overpowered me; my impulse was to flee at once from that infected tent.  But I must not give any alarm, so I simply said to the nurse, “I will go to Dr. Beatty for some medicine; let no one enter this tent until I come back.”  Dr. Beatty was not yet out of his cabin, but receiving my urgent message, soon appeared.  I said, “Doctor, in tent No.——­ there is a very sick man; can we look at the books and learn what diagnosis his surgeon has made?” We went to the office, found the patient’s name and number:  diagnosis,—­Measles.  I then said, “Dr. Beatty, it is not measles, but, I fear, smallpox.”  At once, the doctor strode off, followed closely by myself.  As before, the tent was dark.  “Lift those flaps high,” said the surgeon.  It was done, and there lay before us a veritable case of smallpox.

Dr. Beatty’s entire calmness and self-possession quite restored my own.  Said he, “I must have time to consult my surgeons, to determine what is to be done.  Meanwhile, retire to your cabin.  You will hear from me when matters are arranged.”

The next few hours were for me fraught with fearful anxiety and uncertainty,—­yes, uncertainty,—­for (to my shame, let it be recorded) I actually debated in my own mind whether or not to desert these unfortunate boys of mine, who could not themselves escape the threatened danger.

God helping me, I was able to resist this terrible temptation.  I had, I reasoned, been already exposed as much as was possible, having attended the sick man for days before.  Having dedicated myself to the Holy Cause, for better or worse, I could not desert it even when put to this trying test.  So, when Dr. Beatty came to say that in a few hours quarantine would be established and rigidly enforced, offering me transportation that I might at once go on with the large party who were leaving, I simply announced my determination to remain, but asked that Tempe might be sent to her owners in Alabama, as I dared not risk keeping her.

The poor fellow who had been first seized died that night, and afterward many unfortunates were buried beneath the snow-laden pines.  Some of the nurses fell sick; from morning until night, after, far into the night, my presence was required in those fever-haunted tents.

When not on duty, the loneliness of my cabin was almost insupportable.  Sometimes I longed to flee away from the dismal monotony.  Often I sat upon my doorstep almost ready to scream loudly enough to drown the sad music of the pines.  Since the war I have seen a little poem by John Esten Cooke, which always reminds me of the time when the band in the pines brought such sadness to my own heart: 

  “THE BAND IN THE PINES.

  “Oh, band in the pine-wood cease! 
    Cease with your splendid call;
  The living are brave and noble,
    But the dead were bravest of all!