here to visit your folks," he continued, [Pg 21] "never expecting to see you again, as I learned that you had been captured, and afterward shot, while trying to escape. You say I look worn out; so would you if your only brother was a prisoner in the hands of the rebels, held as a hostage, and every moment expecting to be hung. George is in that situation, and I look upon his death, not only as a possible, but a very probable thing. It has been a hard task for me to convince myself that, if I should live to return home after the war, I should be alone, as I certainly thought I should be when I heard that you had been shot, and that George was not much better off. I had made up my mind to pass my furlough in the house, for I didn't want to have any one near me; but, now that you are here, I want to visit all our old haunts again. Let us take a walk in the woods. Bring your dinner along with you; I haven't had mine yet." [Pg 21] In accordance with Harry's suggestion, a basket was filled with eatables, and the boys bent their steps through the orchard toward the meadow that lay between the cottage and the woods. As they walked along, Frank related some of the interesting incidents of his life in the [Pg 22] service, and Harry finally began to recover his usual spirits. At length they reached the cabin in the woods, that had been the scene of the camp on the day of the raccoon hunt, and here they stopped to rest and eat their dinner. [Pg 22] [Pg 23] [Pg 23] CHAPTER II. Harry on a Scout. hen they had finished every thing in the basket, the boys threw themselves on the grass in front of the cabin, and Harry said: "I shall never forget the last time we made our camp here—on the day we had that 'coon-hunt, and Archie fell into the creek. I've thought of it a great many times since I left home to go into the service, and it makes me feel sad to see how things have changed. From school-boys and amateur hunters, who started and turned pale when we heard the howl of a wolf or the hooting of an owl, you and I have grown pretty well on toward manhood; have become
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