THE LITTLE REGIMENT

AND OTHER EPISODES OF THE

AMERICAN CIVIL WAR

By

STEPHEN CRANE

CONTENTS

THE LITTLE REGIMENT

THREE MIRACULOUS SOLDIERS

A MYSTERY OF HEROISM

AN INDIANA CAMPAIGN

A GREY SLEEVE

THE VETERAN

THE LITTLE REGIMENT

I

The fog made the clothes of the men of the column in the roadway seemof a luminous quality. It imparted to the heavy infantry overcoats a newcolour, a kind of blue which was so pale that a regiment might have beenmerely a long, low shadow in the mist. However, a muttering, one partgrumble, three parts joke, hovered in the air above the thick ranks, andblended in an undertoned roar, which was the voice of the column. 

The town on the southern shore of the little river loomed spectrally, afaint etching upon the grey cloud-masses which were shifting with oilylanguor. A long row of guns upon the northern bank had been pitiless intheir hatred, but a little battered belfry could be dimly seen stillpointing with invincible resolution toward the heavens. 

The enclouded air vibrated with noises made by hidden colossal things. The infantry tramplings, the heavy rumbling of the artillery, made theearth speak of gigantic preparation. Guns on distant heights thunderedfrom time to time with sudden, nervous roar, as if unable to endure insilence a knowledge of hostile troops massing, other guns going toposition. These sounds, near and remote, defined an immense battle-ground, described the tremendous width of the stage of the prospectivedrama. The voices of the guns, slightly casual, unexcited in theirchallenges and warnings, could not destroy the unutterable eloquence ofthe word in the air, a meaning of impending struggle which made thebreath halt at the lips. 

The column in the roadway was ankle-deep in mud. The men swore piouslyat the rain which drizzled upon them, compelling them to stand alwaysvery erect in fear of the drops that would sweep in under their coat-collars. The fog was as cold as wet cloths. The men stuffed their handsdeep in their pockets, and huddled their muskets in their arms. Themachinery of orders had rooted these soldiers deeply into the mud, precisely as almighty nature roots mullein stalks. 

They listened and speculated when a tumult of fighting came from thedim town across the river. When the noise lulled for a time they resumedtheir descriptions of the mud and graphically exaggerated the number ofhours they had been kept waiting. The general commanding their divisionrode along the ranks, and they cheered admiringly, affectionately, crying out to him gleeful prophecies of the coming battle. Each manscanned him with a peculiarly keen personal interest, and afterwardspoke of him with unquestioning devotion and confidence, narratinganecdotes which were mainly untrue. 

When the jokers lifted the shrill voices which invariably belonged tothem, flinging witticisms at their comrades, a loud laugh would sweepfrom rank to rank, and soldiers who had not heard would lean forward anddemand repetition. When were borne past them some wounded men with greyand blood-smeared faces, and eyes that rolled in that helplessbeseeching for assistance from the sky which comes with supreme pain, the soldiers in the mud watched intently, and from time to time asked ofthe bearers an account of the affair. Frequently they bragged of theircorps, their division, their brigade, their regiment. Anon they referredto the mud and the cold drizzle. Upon this threshold of a wild scene ofdeath they, in short, defied the proportion of events with thatsplendour of heedlessness which belongs only to veterans. 

"Like a lot of wooden soldiers, " swore Billie Dempster, moving his feetin the thick mass, and casting a vindictive glance indefinitely:"standing in the mud for a hundred years. "

"Oh, shut up!" murmured his brother Dan. The manner of his wordsimplied that this fraternal voice near him was an indescribable bore. 

"Why should I shut up?" demanded Billie. 

"Because you're a fool, " cried Dan, taking no time to debate it; "thebiggest fool in the regiment. "

There was but one man between them, and he was habituated. Theseinsults from brother to brother had swept across his chest, flown pasthis face, many times during two long campaigns. Upon this occasion hesimply grinned first at one, then at the other. 

The way of these brothers was not an unknown topic in regimentalgossip. They had enlisted simultaneously, with each sneering loudly atthe other for doing it. They left their little town, and went forwardwith the flag, exchanging protestations of undying suspicion. In thecamp life they so openly despised each other that, when entertainingquarrels were lacking, their companions often contrived situationscalculated to bring forth display of this fraternal dislike. 

Both were large-limbed, strong young men, and often fought with friendsin camp unless one was near to interfere with the other. This latterhappened rather frequently, because Dan, preposterously willing for anymanner of combat, had a very great horror of seeing Billie in a fight;and Billie, almost odiously ready himself, simply refused to see Danstripped to his shirt and with his fists aloft. This sat queerly uponthem, and made them the objects of plots. 

When Dan jumped through a ring of eager soldiers and dragged forth hisraving brother by the arm, a thing often predicted would almost come topass. When Billie performed the same office for Dan, the predictionwould again miss fulfilment by an inch. But indeed they never foughttogether, although they were perpetually upon the verge. 

They expressed longing for such conflict. As a matter of truth, theyhad at one time made full arrangement for it, but even with theencouragement and interest of half of the regiment they somehow failedto achieve collision. 

If Dan became a victim of police duty, no jeering was so destructive tothe feelings as Billie's comment. If Billie got a call to appear at theheadquarters, none would so genially prophesy his complete undoing asDan. Small misfortunes to one were, in truth, invariably greeted withhilarity by the other, who seemed to see in them great re-enforcement ofhis opinion. 

As soldiers, they expressed each for each a scorn intense and blasting. After a certain battle, Billie was promoted to corporal. When Dan wastold of it, he seemed smitten dumb with astonishment and patrioticindignation. He stared in silence, while the dark blood rushed toBillie's forehead, and he shifted his weight from foot to foot. Dan atlast found his tongue, and said: "Well, I'm durned!" If he had heardthat an army mule had been appointed to the post of corps commander, histone could not have had more derision in it. Afterward, he adopted afervid insubordination, an almost religious reluctance to obey the newcorporal's orders, which came near to developing the desired strife. 

It is here finally to be recorded also that Dan, most ferociouslyprofane in speech, very rarely swore in the presence of his brother; andthat Billie, whose oaths came from his lips with the grace of fallingpebbles, was seldom known to express himself in this manner when nearhis brother Dan. 

At last the afternoon contained a suggestion of evening. Metallic criesrang suddenly from end to end of the column. They inspired at once aquick, business-like adjustment. The long thing stirred in the mud. Themen had hushed, and were looking across the river. A moment later theshadowy mass of pale blue figures was moving steadily toward the stream. There could be heard from the town a clash of swift fighting andcheering. The noise of the shooting coming through the heavy air had itssharpness taken from it, and sounded in thuds. 

There was a halt upon the bank above the pontoons. When the column wentwinding down the incline, and streamed out upon the bridge, the fog hadfaded to a great degree, and in the clearer dusk the guns on a distantridge were enabled to perceive the crossing. The long whirling outcriesof the shells came into the air above the men. An occasional solid shotstruck the surface of the river, and dashed into view a sudden verticaljet. The distance was subtly illuminated by the lightning from the deep-booming guns. One by one the batteries on the northern shore aroused, the innumerable guns bellowing in angry oration at the distant ridge. The rolling thunder crashed and reverberated as a wild surf sounds on astill night, and to this music the column marched across the pontoons. 

The waters of the grim river curled away in a smile from the ends ofthe great boats, and slid swiftly beneath the planking. The dark, riddled walls of the town upreared before the troops, and from a regionhidden by these hammered and tumbled houses came incessantly the yellsand firings of a prolonged and close skirmish. 

When Dan had called his brother a fool, his voice had been so decisive, so brightly assured, that many men had laughed, considering it to begreat humour under the circumstances. The incident happened to rankledeep in Billie. It was not any strange thing that his brother had calledhim a fool. In fact, he often called him a fool with exactly the sameamount of cheerful and prompt conviction, and before large audiences, too. Billie wondered in his own mind why he took such profound offencein this case; but, at any rate, as he slid down the bank and on to thebridge with his regiment, he was searching his knowledge for somethingthat would pierce Dan's blithesome spirit. But he could contrive nothingat this time, and his impotency made the glance which he was once ableto give his brother still more malignant. 

The guns far and near were roaring a fearful and grand introduction forthis column which was marching upon the stage of death. Billie felt it, but only in a numb way. His heart was cased in that curious dissonantmetal which covers a man's emotions at such times. The terrible voicesfrom the hills told him that in this wide conflict his life was aninsignificant fact, and that his death would be an insignificant fact. They portended the whirlwind to which he would be as necessary as abutterfly's waved wing. The solemnity, the sadness of it came nearenough to make him wonder why he was neither solemn nor sad. When hismind vaguely adjusted events according to their importance to him, itappeared that the uppermost thing was the fact that upon the eve ofbattle, and before many comrades, his brother had called him a fool. 

Dan was in a particularly happy mood. "Hurray! Look at 'em shoot, " hesaid, when the long witches' croon of the shells came into the air. Itenraged Billie when he felt the little thorn in him, and saw at the sametime that his brother had completely forgotten it. 

The column went from the bridge into more mud. At this southern endthere was a chaos of hoarse directions and commands. Darkness was comingupon the earth, and regiments were being hurried up the slippery bank. As Billie floundered in the black mud, amid the swearing, sliding crowd, he suddenly resolved that, in the absence of other means of hurting Dan, he would avoid looking at him, refrain from speaking to him, payabsolutely no heed to his existence; and this done skilfully would, heimagined, soon reduce his brother to a poignant sensitiveness. 

At the top of the bank the column again halted and rearranged itself, as a man after a climb rearranges his clothing. Presently the greatsteel-backed brigade, an infinitely graceful thing in the rhythm andease of its veteran movement, swung up a little narrow, slanting street. 

Evening had come so swiftly that the fighting on the remote borders ofthe town was indicated by thin flashes of flame. Some building was onfire, and its reflection upon the clouds was an oval of delicate pink. 

II

All demeanour of rural serenity had been wrenched violently from thelittle town by the guns and by the waves of men which had surged throughit. The hand of war laid upon this village had in an instant changed itto a thing of remnants. It resembled the place of a monstrous shaking ofthe earth itself. The windows, now mere unsightly holes, made thetumbled and blackened dwellings seem skeletons. Doors lay splintered tofragments. Chimneys had flung their bricks everywhere. The artilleryfire had not neglected the rows of gentle shade-trees which had linedthe streets. Branches and heavy trunks cluttered the mud in driftwoodtangles, while a few shattered forms had contrived to remain dejectedly, mournfully upright. They expressed an innocence, a helplessness, whichperforce created a pity for their happening into this caldron of battle. Furthermore, there was under foot a vast collection of odd thingsreminiscent of the charge, the fight, the retreat. There were boxes andbarrels filled with earth, behind which riflemen had lain snugly, and inthese little trenches were the dead in blue with the dead in grey, theposes eloquent of the struggles for possession of the town, until thehistory of the whole conflict was written plainly in the streets. 

And yet the spirit of this little city, its quaint individuality, poised in the air above the ruins, defying the guns, the sweepingvolleys; holding in contempt those avaricious blazes which had attackedmany dwellings. The hard earthen sidewalks proclaimed the games that hadbeen played there during long lazy days, in the careful, shadows of thetrees. "General Merchandise, " in faint letters upon a long board, had tobe read with a slanted glance, for the sign dangled by one end; but theporch of the old store was a palpable legend of wide-hatted men, smoking. 

This subtle essence, this soul of the life that had been, brushed likeinvisible wings the thoughts of the men in the swift columns that cameup from the river. 

In the darkness a loud and endless humming arose from the great bluecrowds bivouacked in the streets. From time to time a sharp spatter offiring from far picket lines entered this bass chorus. The smell fromthe smouldering ruins floated on the cold night breeze. 

Dan, seated ruefully upon the doorstep of a shot-pierced house, wasproclaiming the campaign badly managed. Orders had been issuedforbidding camp-fires. 

Suddenly he ceased his oration, and scanning the group of his comrades, said: "Where's Billie? Do you know?"

"Gone on picket. "

"Get out! Has he?" said Dan. "No business to go on picket. Why don'tsome of them other corporals take their turn?"

A bearded private was smoking his pipe of confiscated tobacco, seatedcomfortably upon a horse-hair trunk which he had dragged from the house. He observed: "Was his turn. "

"No such thing, " cried Dan. He and the man on the horse-hair trunk helddiscussion in which Dan stoutly maintained that if his brother had beensent on picket it was an injustice. He ceased his argument when anothersoldier, upon whose arms could faintly be seen the two stripes of acorporal, entered the circle. "Humph, " said Dan, "where you been?"

The corporal made no answer. Presently Dan said: "Billie, where youbeen?"

His brother did not seem to hear these inquiries. He glanced at thehouse which towered above them, and remarked casually to the man on thehorse-hair trunk: "Funny, ain't it? After the pelting this town got, you'd think there wouldn't be one brick left on another. "

"Oh, " said Dan, glowering at his brother's back. "Getting mighty smart, ain't you?"

The absence of camp-fires allowed the evening to make apparent itsquality of faint silver light in which the blue clothes of the throngbecame black, and the faces became white expanses, void of expression. There was considerable excitement a short distance from the group aroundthe doorstep. A soldier had chanced upon a hoop-skirt, and arrayed in ithe was performing a dance amid the applause of his companions. Billieand a greater part of the men immediately poured over there to witnessthe exhibition. 

"What's the matter with Billie?" demanded Dan of the man upon the horse-hair trunk. 

"How do I know?" rejoined the other in mild resentment. He arose andwalked away. When he returned he said briefly, in a weather-wise tone, that it would rain during the night. 

Dan took a seat upon one end of the horse-hair trunk. He was facing thecrowd around the dancer, which in its hilarity swung this way and thatway. At times he imagined that he could recognise his brother's face. 

He and the man on the other end of the trunk thoughtfully talked of thearmy's position. To their minds, infantry and artillery were in a mostprecarious jumble in the streets of the town; but they did not grownervous over it, for they were used to having the army appear in aprecarious jumble to their minds. They had learned to accept suchpuzzling situations as a consequence of their position in the ranks, andwere now usually in possession of a simple but perfectly immovable faiththat somebody understood the jumble. Even if they had been convincedthat the army was a headless monster, they would merely have nodded withthe veteran's singular cynicism. It was none of their business assoldiers. Their duty was to grab sleep and food when occasion permitted, and cheerfully fight wherever their feet were planted until more orderscame. This was a task sufficiently absorbing. 

They spoke of other corps, and this talk being confidential, theirvoices dropped to tones of awe. "The Ninth"--"The First"--"The Fifth"--"The Sixth"--"The Third"--the simple numerals rang with eloquence, eachhaving a meaning which was to float through many years as no intangiblearithmetical mist, but as pregnant with individuality as the names ofcities. 

Of their own corps they spoke with a deep veneration, an idolatry, asupreme confidence which apparently would not blanch to see it matchagainst everything. 

It was as if their respect for other corps was due partly to a wonderthat organisations not blessed with their own famous numeral could takesuch an interest in war. They could prove that their division was thebest in the corps, and that their brigade was the best in the division. And their regiment--it was plain that no fortune of life was equal tothe chance which caused a man to be born, so to speak, into thiscommand, the keystone of the defending arch. 

At times Dan covered with insults the character of a vague, unnamedgeneral to whose petulance and busy-body spirit he ascribed the orderwhich made hot coffee impossible. 

Dan said that victory was certain in the coming battle. The other manseemed rather dubious. He remarked upon the fortified line of hills, which had impressed him even from the other side of the river. "Shucks, "said Dan. "Why, we----" He pictured a splendid overflowing of thesehills by the sea of men in blue. During the period of this conversationDan's glance searched the merry throng about the dancer. Above thebabble of voices in the street a far-away thunder could sometimes beheard--evidently from the very edge of the horizon--the boom-boom ofrestless guns. 

III

Ultimately the night deepened to the tone of black velvet. The outlinesof the fireless camp were like the faint drawings upon ancient tapestry. The glint of a rifle, the, shine of a button, might have been of threadsof silver and gold sewn upon the fabric of the night. There was littlepresented to the vision, but to a sense more subtle there wasdiscernible in the atmosphere something like a pulse; a mystic beatingwhich would have told a stranger of the presence of a giant thing--theslumbering mass of regiments and batteries. 

With tires forbidden, the floor of a dry old kitchen was thought to bea good exchange for the cold earth of December, even if a shell hadexploded in it, and knocked it so out of shape that when a man laycurled in his blanket his last waking thought was likely to be of thewall that bellied out above him, as if strongly anxious to topple uponthe score of soldiers. 

Billie looked at the bricks ever about to descend in a shower upon hisface, listened to the industrious pickets plying their rifles on theborder of the town, imagined some measure of the din of the comingbattle, thought of Dan and Dan's chagrin, and rolling over in hisblanket went to sleep with satisfaction. 

At an unknown hour he was aroused by the creaking of boards. Liftinghimself upon his elbow, he saw a sergeant prowling among the sleepingforms. The sergeant carried a candle in an old brass candlestick. Hewould have resembled some old farmer on an unusual midnight tour if itwere not for the significance of his gleaming buttons and striped sleeves. 

Billie blinked stupidly at the light until his mind returned from thejourneys of slumber. The sergeant stooped among the unconscioussoldiers, holding the candle close, and peering into each face. 

"Hello, Haines, " said Billie. "Relief?"

"Hello, Billie, " said the sergeant. "Special duty. "

"Dan got to go?"

"Jameson, Hunter, McCormack, D. Dempster. Yes. Where is he?"

"Over there by the winder, " said Billie, gesturing. "What is it for, Haines?"

"You don't think I know, do you?" demanded the sergeant. He began topipe sharply but cheerily at men upon the floor. "Come, Mac, get uphere. Here's a special for you. Wake up, Jameson. Come along, Dannie, meboy. "

Each man at once took this call to duty as a personal affront. Theypulled themselves out of their blankets, rubbed their eyes, and swore atwhoever was responsible. "Them's orders, " cried the sergeant. "Come! Getout of here. " An undetailed head with dishevelled hair thrust out from ablanket, and a sleepy voice said: "Shut up, Haines, and go home. "

When the detail clanked out of the kitchen, all but one of theremaining men seemed to be again asleep. Billie, leaning on his elbow, was gazing into darkness. When the footsteps died to silence, he curledhimself into his blanket. 

At the first cool lavender lights of daybreak he aroused again, andscanned his recumbent companions. Seeing a wakeful one he asked: "Is Danback yet?"

The man said: "Hain't seen 'im. "

Billie put both hands behind his head, and scowled into the air. "Can'tsee the use of these cussed details in the night-time, " he muttered inhis most unreasonable tones. "Darn nuisances. Why can't they----" Hegrumbled at length and graphically. 

When Dan entered with the squad, however, Billie was convincingly asleep. 

IV

The regiment trotted in double time along the street, and the colonelseemed to quarrel over the right of way with many artillery officers. Batteries were waiting in the mud, and the men of them, exasperated bythe bustle of this ambitious infantry, shook their fists from saddle andcaisson, exchanging all manner of taunts and jests. The slanted gunscontinued to look reflectively at the ground. 

On the outskirts of the crumbled town a fringe of blue figures werefiring into the fog. The regiment swung out into skirmish lines, and thefringe of blue figures departed, turning their backs and going joyfullyaround the flank. 

The bullets began a low moan off toward a ridge which loomed faintly inthe heavy mist. When the swift crescendo had reached its climax, themissiles zipped just overhead, as if piercing an invisible curtain. Abattery on the hill was crashing with such tumult that it was as if theguns had quarrelled and had fallen pell-mell and snarling upon eachother. The shells howled on their journey toward the town. From short-range distance there came a spatter of musketry, sweeping along aninvisible line, and making faint sheets of orange light. 

Some in the new skirmish lines were beginning to fire at variousshadows discerned in the vapour, forms of men suddenly revealed by somehumour of the laggard masses of clouds. The crackle of musketry began todominate the purring of the hostile bullets. Dan, in the front rank, held his rifle poised, and looked into the fog keenly, coldly, with theair of a sportsman. His nerves were so steady that it was as if they hadbeen drawn from his body, leaving him merely a muscular machine; but hisnumb heart was somehow beating to the pealing march of the fight. 

The waving skirmish line went backward and forward, ran this way andthat way. Men got lost in the fog, and men were found again. Once theygot too close to the formidable ridge, and the thing burst out as ifrepulsing a general attack. Once another blue regiment was apprehendedon the very edge of firing into them. Once a friendly battery began anelaborate and scientific process of extermination. Always as busy asbrokers, the men slid here and there over the plain, fighting theirfoes, escaping from their friends, leaving a history of many movementsin the wet yellow turf, cursing the atmosphere, blazing away every timethey could identify the enemy. 

In one mystic changing of the fog as if the fingers of spirits weredrawing aside these draperies, a small group of the grey skirmishers, silent, statuesque, were suddenly disclosed to Dan and those about him. So vivid and near were they that there was something uncanny in therevelation. 

There might have been a second of mutual staring. Then each rifle ineach group was at the shoulder. As Dan's glance flashed along the barrelof his weapon, the figure of a man suddenly loomed as if the musket hadbeen a telescope. The short black beard, the slouch hat, the pose of theman as he sighted to shoot, made a quick picture in Dan's mind. The samemoment, it would seem, he pulled his own trigger, and the man, smitten, lurched forward, while his exploding rifle made a slanting crimsonstreak in the air, and the slouch hat fell before the body. The billowsof the fog, governed by singular impulses, rolled between. 

"You got that feller sure enough, " said a comrade to Dan. Dan looked athim absent-mindedly. 

V

When the next morning calmly displayed another fog, the men of theregiment exchanged eloquent comments; but they did not abuse it atlength, because the streets of the town now contained enough gallopingaides to make three troops of cavalry, and they knew that they had cometo the verge of the great fight. 

Dan conversed with the man who had once possessed a horse-hair trunk;but they did not mention the line of hills which had furnished them inmore careless moments with an agreeable topic. They avoided it now ascondemned men do the subject of death, and yet the thought of it stayedin their eyes as they looked at each other and talked gravely of otherthings. 

The expectant regiment heaved a long sigh of relief when the sharpcall: "Fall in, " repeated indefinitely, arose in the streets. It wasinevitable that a bloody battle was to be fought, and they wanted to getit off their minds. They were, however, doomed again to spend a longperiod planted firmly in the mud. They craned their necks, and wonderedwhere some of the other regiments were going. 

At last the mists rolled carelessly away. Nature made at this time allprovisions to enable foes to see each other, and immediately the roar ofguns resounded from every hill. The endless cracking of the skirmishersswelled to rolling crashes of musketry. Shells screamed with panther-like noises at the houses. Dan looked at the man of the horse-hairtrunk, and the man said: "Well, here she comes!"

The tenor voices of younger officers and the deep and hoarse voices ofthe older ones rang in the streets. These cries pricked like spurs. Themasses of men vibrated from the suddenness with which they were plungedinto the situation of troops about to fight. That the orders were long-expected did not concern the emotion. 

Simultaneous movement was imparted to all these thick bodies of men andhorses that lay in the town. Regiment after regiment swung rapidly intothe streets that faced the sinister ridge. 

This exodus was theatrical. The little sober-hued village had been likethe cloak which disguises the king of drama. It was now put aside, andan army, splendid thing of steel and blue, stood forth in the sunlight. 

Even the soldiers in the heavy columns drew deep breaths at the sight, more majestic than they had dreamed. The heights of the enemy's positionwere crowded with men who resembled people come to witness some mightypageant. But as the column moved steadily to their positions, the guns, matter-of-fact warriors, doubled their number, and shells burst with redthrilling tumult on the crowded plain. One came into the ranks of theregiment, and after the smoke and the wrath of it had faded, leavingmotionless figures, every one stormed according to the limits of hisvocabulary, for veterans detest being killed when they are not busy. 

The regiment sometimes looked sideways at its brigade companionscomposed of men who had never been in battle; but no frozen blood couldwithstand the heat of the splendour of this army before the eyes on theplain, these lines so long that the flanks were little streaks, thismass of men of one intention. The recruits carried themselvesheedlessly. At the rear was an idle battery, and three artillerymen in afoolish row on a caisson nudged each other and grinned at the recruits. "You'll catch it pretty soon, " they called out. They were impersonallygleeful, as if they themselves were not also likely to catch it prettysoon. But with this picture of an army in their hearts, the new menperhaps felt the devotion which the drops may feel for the wave; theywere of its power and glory; they smiled jauntily at the foolish row ofgunners, and told them to go to blazes. 

The column trotted across some little bridges, and spread quickly intolines of battle. Before them was a bit of plain, and back of the plainwas the ridge. There was no time left for considerations. The men werestaring at the plain, mightily wondering how it would feel to be outthere, when a brigade in advance yelled and charged. The hill was allgrey smoke and fire-points. 

That fierce elation in the terrors of war, catching a man's heart andmaking it burn with such ardour that he becomes capable of dying, flashed in the faces of the men like coloured lights, and made themresemble leashed animals, eager, ferocious, daunting at nothing. Theline was really in its first leap before the wild, hoarse crying of theorders. 

The greed for close quarters, which is the emotion of a bayonet charge, came then into the minds of the men and developed until it was amadness. The field, with its faded grass of a Southern winter, seemed tothis fury miles in width. 

High, slow-moving masses of smoke, with an odour of burning cotton, engulfed the line until the men might have been swimmers. Before themthe ridge, the shore of this grey sea, was outlined, crossed, andrecrossed by sheets of flame. The howl of the battle arose to the noiseof innumerable wind demons. 

The line, galloping, scrambling, plunging like a herd of woundedhorses, went over a field that was sown with corpses, the records ofother charges. 

Directly in front of the black-faced, whooping Dan, carousing in thisonward sweep like a new kind of fiend, a wounded man appeared, raisinghis shattered body, and staring at this rush of men down upon him. Itseemed to occur to him that he was to be trampled; he made a desperate, piteous effort to escape; then finally huddled in a waiting heap. Danand the soldier near him widened the interval between them withoutlooking down, without appearing to heed the wounded man. This littleclump of blue seemed to reel past them as boulders reel past a train. 

Bursting through a smoke-wave, the scampering, unformed bunches cameupon the wreck of the brigade that had preceded them, a floundering massstopped afar from the hill by the swirling volleys. 

It was as if a necromancer had suddenly shown them a picture of thefate which awaited them; but the line with muscular spasm hurled itselfover this wreckage and onward, until men were stumbling amid the relicsof other assaults, the point where the fire from the ridge consumed. 

The men, panting, perspiring, with crazed faces, tried to push againstit; but it was as if they had come to a wall. The wave halted, shudderedin an agony from the quick struggle of its two desires, then toppled, and broke into a fragmentary thing which has no name. 

Veterans could now at last be distinguished from recruits. The newregiments were instantly gone, lost, scattered, as if they never hadbeen. But the sweeping failure of the charge, the battle, could not makethe veterans forget their business. With a last throe, the band ofmaniacs drew itself up and blazed a volley at the hill, insignificant tothose iron entrenchments, but nevertheless expressing that singularfinal despair which enables men coolly to defy the walls of a city ofdeath. 

After this episode the men renamed their command. They called it theLittle Regiment. 

VI

"I seen Dan shoot a feller yesterday. Yes, sir. I'm sure it was himthat done it. And maybe he thinks about that feller now, and wonders ifhe tumbled down just about the same way. Them things come up in a man'smind. "

Bivouac fires upon the sidewalks, in the streets, in the yards, threwhigh their wavering reflections, which examined, like slim, red fingers, the dingy, scarred walls and the piles of tumbled brick. The droning ofvoices again arose from great blue crowds. 

The odour of frying bacon, the fragrance from countless little coffee-pails floated among the ruins. The rifles, stacked in the shadows, emitted flashes of steely light. Wherever a flag lay horizontally fromone stack to another was the bed of an eagle which had led men into themystic smoke. 

The men about a particular fire were engaged in holding in check theirjovial spirits. They moved whispering around the blaze, although theylooked at it with a certain fine contentment, like labourers after aday's hard work. 

There was one who sat apart. They did not address him save in tonessuddenly changed. They did not regard him directly, but always in littlesidelong glances. 

At last a soldier from a distant fire came into this circle of light. He studied for a time the man who sat apart. Then he hesitatinglystepped closer, and said: "Got any news, Dan?"

"No, " said Dan. 

The new-comer shifted his feet. He looked at the fire, at the sky, atthe other men, at Dan. His face expressed a curious despair; his tonguewas plainly in rebellion. Finally, however, he contrived to say: "Well, there's some chance yet, Dan. Lots of the wounded are still lying outthere, you know. There's some chance yet. "

"Yes, " said Dan. 

The soldier shifted his feet again, and looked miserably into the air. After another struggle he said: "Well, there's some chance yet, Dan. " Hemoved hastily away. 

One of the men of the squad, perhaps encouraged by this example, nowapproached the still figure. "No news yet, hey?" he said, after coughingbehind his hand. 

"No, " said Dan. 

"Well, " said the man, "I've been thinking of how he was fretting aboutyou the night you went on special duty. You recollect? Well, sir, I wassurprised. He couldn't say enough about it. I swan, I don't believe heslep' a wink after you left, but just lay awake cussing special duty andworrying. I was surprised. But there he lay cussing. He----"

Dan made a curious sound, as if a stone had wedged in his throat. Hesaid: "Shut up, will you?"

Afterward the men would not allow this moody contemplation of the fireto be interrupted. 

"Oh, let him alone, can't you?"

"Come away from there, Casey!"

"Say, can't you leave him be?"

They moved with reverence about the immovable figure, with itscountenance of mask-like invulnerability. 

VII

After the red round eye of the sun had stared long at the little plainand its burden, darkness, a sable mercy, came heavily upon it, and thewan hands of the dead were no longer seen in strange frozen gestures. 

The heights in front of the plain shone with tiny camp-fires, and fromthe town in the rear, small shimmerings ascended from the blazes of thebivouac. The plain was a black expanse upon which, from time to time, dots of light, lanterns, floated slowly here and there. These fieldswere long steeped in grim mystery. 

Suddenly, upon one dark spot, there was a resurrection. A strange thinghad been groaning there, prostrate. Then it suddenly dragged itself to asitting posture, and became a man. 

The man stared stupidly for a moment at the lights on the hill, thenturned and contemplated the faint colouring over the town. For somemoments he remained thus, staring with dull eyes, his face unemotional, wooden. 

Finally he looked around him at the corpses dimly to be seen. No changeflashed into his face upon viewing these men. They seemed to suggestmerely that his information concerning himself was not too complete. Heran his fingers over his arms and chest, bearing always the air of anidiot upon a bench at an almshouse door. 

Finding no wound in his arms nor in his chest, he raised his hand tohis head, and the fingers came away with some dark liquid upon them. Holding these fingers close to his eyes, he scanned them in the samestupid fashion, while his body gently swayed. 

The soldier rolled his eyes again toward the town. When he arose, hisclothing peeled from the frozen ground like wet paper. Hearing the soundof it, he seemed to see reason for deliberation. He paused and looked atthe ground, then at his trousers, then at the ground. 

Finally he went slowly off toward the faint reflection, holding hishands palm outward before him, and walking in the manner of a blind man. 

VIII

The immovable Dan again sat unaddressed in the midst of comrades, whodid not joke aloud. The dampness of the usual morning fog seemed to makethe little camp-fires furious. 

Suddenly a cry arose in the streets, a shout of amazement and delight. The men making breakfast at the fire looked up quickly. They broke forthin clamorous exclamation: "Well! Of all things! Dan! Dan! Look who'scoming! Oh, Dan!"

Dan the silent raised his eyes and saw a man, with a bandage of thesize of a helmet about his head, receiving a furious demonstration fromthe company. He was shaking hands, and explaining, and haranguing to ahigh degree. 

Dan started. His face of bronze flushed to his temples. He seemed aboutto leap from the ground, but then suddenly he sank back, and resumed hisimpassive gazing. 

The men were in a flurry. They looked from one to the other. "Dan!Look! See who's coming!" some cried again. "Dan! Look!"

He scowled at last, and moved his shoulders sullenly. "Well, don't Iknow it?"

But they could not be convinced that his eyes were in service. "Dan, why can't you look! See who's coming!"

He made a gesture then of irritation and rage. "Curse it! Don't I knowit?"

The man with a bandage of the size of a helmet moved forward, alwaysshaking hands and explaining. At times his glance wandered to Dan, whosaw with his eyes riveted. 

After a series of shiftings, it occurred naturally that the man withthe bandage was very near to the man who saw the flames. He paused, andthere was a little silence. Finally he said: "Hello, Dan. "

"Hello, Billie. "

THREE MIRACULOUS SOLDIERS

I

The girl was in the front room on the second floor, peering through theblinds. It was the "best room. " There was a very new rag carpet on thefloor. The edges of it had been dyed with alternate stripes of red andgreen. Upon the wooden mantel there were two little puffy figures inclay--a shepherd and a shepherdess probably. A triangle of pink andwhite wool hung carefully over the edge of this shelf. Upon the bureauthere was nothing at all save a spread newspaper, with edges folded tomake it into a mat. The quilts and sheets had been removed from the bedand were stacked upon a chair. The pillows and the great feathermattress were muffled and tumbled until they resembled great dumplings. The picture of a man terribly leaden in complexion hung in an oval frameon one white wall and steadily confronted the bureau. 

From between the slats of the blinds she had a view of the road as itwended across the meadow to the woods, and again where it reappearedcrossing the hill, half a mile away. It lay yellow and warm in thesummer sunshine. From the long grasses of the meadow came the rhythmicclick of the insects. Occasional frogs in the hidden brook made apeculiar chug-chug sound, as if somebody throttled them. The leaves ofthe wood swung in gentle winds. Through the dark-green branches of thepines that grew in the front yard could be seen the mountains, far tothe south-east, and inexpressibly blue. 

Mary's eyes were fastened upon the little streak of road that appearedon the distant hill. Her face was flushed with excitement, and the handwhich stretched in a strained pose on the sill trembled because of thenervous shaking of the wrist. The pines whisked their green needles witha soft, hissing sound against the house. 

At last the girl turned from the window and went to the head of thestairs. "Well, I just know they're coming, anyhow, " she criedargumentatively to the depths. 

A voice from below called to her angrily: "They ain't. We've never seenone yet. They never come into this neighbourhood. You just come downhere and 'tend to your work insteader watching for soldiers. "

"Well, ma, I just know they're coming. "

A voice retorted with the shrillness and mechanical violence ofoccasional housewives. The girl swished her skirts defiantly andreturned to the window. 

Upon the yellow streak of road that lay across the hillside there nowwas a handful of black dots--horsemen. A cloud of dust floated away. Thegirl flew to the head of the stairs and whirled down into the kitchen. 

"They're coming! They're coming!"

It was as if she had cried "Fire!" Her mother had been peeling potatoeswhile seated comfortably at the table. She sprang to her feet. "No--itcan't be--how you know it's them--where?" The stubby knife fell from herhand, and two or three curls of potato skin dropped from her apron tothe floor. 

The girl turned and dashed upstairs. Her mother followed, gasping forbreath, and yet contriving to fill the air with questions, reproach, andremonstrance. The girl was already at the window, eagerly pointing. "There! There! See 'em! See 'em!"

Rushing to the window, the mother scanned for an instant the road onthe hill. She crouched back with a groan. "It's them, sure as the world!It's them!" She waved her hands in despairing gestures. 

The black dots vanished into the wood. The girl at the window wasquivering and her eyes were shining like water when the sun flashes. "Hush! They're in the woods! They'll be here directly. " She bent downand intently watched the green archway whence the road emerged. "Hush!I hear 'em coming, " she swiftly whispered to her mother, for the elderwoman had dropped dolefully upon the mattress and was sobbing. And, indeed, the girl could hear the quick, dull trample of horses. Shestepped aside with sudden apprehension, but she bent her head forward inorder to still scan the road. 

"Here they are!"

There was something very theatrical in the sudden appearance of thesemen to the eyes of the girl. It was as if a scene had been shifted. Theforest suddenly disclosed them--a dozen brown-faced troopers in blue--galloping. 

"Oh, look!" breathed the girl. Her mouth was puckered into anexpression of strange fascination, as if she had expected to see thetroopers change into demons and gloat at her. She was at last lookingupon those curious beings who rode down from the North--those men oflegend and colossal tale--they who were possessed of such marvelloushallucinations. 

The little troop rode in silence. At its head was a youthful fellowwith some dim yellow stripes upon his arm. In his right hand he held hiscarbine, slanting upward, with the stock resting upon his knee. He wasabsorbed in a scrutiny of the country before him. 

At the heels of the sergeant the rest of the squad rode in thin column, with creak of leather and tinkle of steel and tin. The girl scanned thefaces of the horsemen, seeming astonished vaguely to find them of thetype she knew. 

The lad at the head of the troop comprehended the house and itsenvironments in two glances. He did not check the long, swinging strideof his horse. The troopers glanced for a moment like casual tourists, and then returned to their study of the region in front. The heavythudding of the hoofs became a small noise. The dust, hanging in sheets, slowly sank. 

The sobs of the woman on the bed took form in words which, while strongin their note of calamity, yet expressed a querulous mental reaching forsome near thing to blame. "And it'll be lucky fer us if we ain't bothbutchered in our sleep--plundering and running off horses--old Santo'sgone--you see if he ain't--plundering--"

"But, ma, " said the girl, perplexed and terrified in the same moment, "they've gone. "

"Oh, but they'll come back!" cried the mother, without pausing herwail. "They'll come back--trust them for that--running off horses. OJohn, John! why did you, why did you?" She suddenly lifted herself andsat rigid, staring at her daughter. "Mary, " she said in tragic whisper, "the kitchen door isn't locked!" Already she was bended forward tolisten, her mouth agape, her eyes fixed upon her daughter. 

"Mother, " faltered the girl. 

Her mother again whispered, "The kitchen door isn't locked. "

Motionless and mute they stared into each other's eyes. 

At last the girl quavered, "We better--we better go and lock it. " Themother nodded. Hanging arm in arm they stole across the floor toward thehead of the stairs. A board of the floor creaked. They halted andexchanged a look of dumb agony. 

At last they reached the head of the stairs. From the kitchen came thebass humming of the kettle and frequent sputterings and cracklings fromthe fire. These sounds were sinister. The mother and the girl stoodincapable of movement. "There's somebody down there!" whispered theelder woman. 

Finally, the girl made a gesture of resolution. She twisted her armfrom her mother's hands and went two steps downward. She addressed thekitchen: "Who's there?" Her tone was intended to be dauntless. It rangso dramatically in the silence that a sudden new panic seized them as ifthe suspected presence in the kitchen had cried out to them. But thegirl ventured again: "Is there anybody there?" No reply was made save bythe kettle and the fire. 

With a stealthy tread the girl continued her journey. As she neared thelast step the fire crackled explosively and the girl screamed. But themystic presence had not swept around the corner to grab her, so shedropped to a seat on the step and laughed. "It was--was only the--thefire, " she said, stammering hysterically. 

Then she arose with sudden fortitude and cried: "Why, there isn'tanybody there! I know there isn't. " She marched down into the kitchen. In her face was dread, as if she half expected to confront something, but the room was empty. She cried joyously: "There's nobody here! Come ondown, ma. " She ran to the kitchen door and locked it. 

The mother came down to the kitchen. "Oh, dear, what a fright I've had!It's given me the sick headache. I know it has. "

"Oh, ma, " said the girl. 

"I know it has--I know it. Oh, if your father was only here! He'dsettle those Yankees mighty quick--he'd settle 'em! Two poor helplesswomen--"

"Why, ma, what makes you act so? The Yankees haven't--"

"Oh, they'll be back--they'll be back. Two poor helpless women! Yourfather and your uncle Asa and Bill off galavanting around and fightingwhen they ought to be protecting their home! That's the kind of men theyare. Didn't I say to your father just before he left--"

"Ma, " said the girl, coming suddenly from the window, "the barn door isopen. I wonder if they took old Santo?"

"Oh, of course they have--of course--Mary, I don't see what we aregoing to do--I don't see what we are going to do. "

The girl said, "Ma, I'm going to see if they took old Santo. "

"Mary, " cried the mother, "don't you dare!"

"But think of poor old Sant, ma. "

"Never you mind old Santo. We're lucky to be safe ourselves, I tellyou. Never mind old Santo. Don't you dare to go out there, Mary--Mary!"

The girl had unlocked the door and stepped out upon the porch. Themother cried in despair, "Mary!"

"Why, there isn't anybody out here, " the girl called in response. Shestood for a moment with a curious smile upon her face as of gleefulsatisfaction at her daring. 

The breeze was waving the boughs of the apple trees. A rooster with anair importantly courteous was conducting three hens upon a foragingtour. On the hillside at the rear of the grey old barn the red leaves ofa creeper flamed amid the summer foliage. High in the sky clouds rolledtoward the north. The girl swung impulsively from the little stoop andran toward the barn. 

The great door was open, and the carved peg which usually performed theoffice of a catch lay on the ground. The girl could not see into thebarn because of the heavy shadows. She paused in a listening attitudeand heard a horse munching placidly. She gave a cry of delight andsprang across the threshold. Then she suddenly shrank back and gasped. She had confronted three men in grey seated upon the floor with theirlegs stretched out and their backs against Santo's manger. Their dust-covered countenances were expanded in grins. 

II

As Mary sprang backward and screamed, one of the calm men in grey, still grinning, announced, "I knowed you'd holler. " Sitting therecomfortably the three surveyed her with amusement. 

Mary caught her breath, throwing her hand up to her throat. "Oh!" shesaid, "you--you frightened me!"

"We're sorry, lady, but couldn't help it no way, " cheerfully respondedanother. "I knowed you'd holler when I seen you coming yere, but Iraikoned we couldn't help it no way. We hain't a-troubling this yerebarn, I don't guess. We been doing some mighty tall sleeping yere. Wedone woke when them Yanks loped past. "

"Where did you come from? Did--did you escape from the--the Yankees?"The girl still stammered and trembled. 

The three soldiers laughed. "No, m'm. No, m'm. They never cotch us. Wewas in a muss down the road yere about two mile. And Bill yere they ginit to him in the arm, kehplunk. And they pasted me thar, too. Curious, And Sim yere, he didn't get nothing, but they chased us all quite alittle piece, and we done lose track of our boys. "

"Was it--was it those who passed here just now? Did they chase you?"

The men in grey laughed again. "What--them? No, indeedee! There was amighty big swarm of Yanks and a mighty big swarm of our boys, too. What--that little passel? No, m'm. "

She became calm enough to scan them more attentively. They were muchbegrimed and very dusty. Their grey clothes were tattered. Splashed mudhad dried upon them in reddish spots. It appeared, too, that the men hadnot shaved in many days. In the hats there was a singular diversity. Onesoldier wore the little blue cap of the Northern infantry, with corpsemblem and regimental number; one wore a great slouch hat with a widehole in the crown; and the other wore no hat at all. The left sleeve ofone man and the right sleeve of another had been slit, and the arms wereneatly bandaged with clean cloths. "These hain't no more than two littlecuts, " explained one. "We stopped up yere to Mis' Leavitts--she said hername was--and she bind them for us. Bill yere, he had the thirst come onhim. And the fever too. We----"

"Did you ever see my father in the army?" asked Mary. "John Hinckson--his name is. "

The three soldiers grinned again, but they replied kindly: "No, m'm. No, m'm, we hain't never. What is he--in the cavalry?"

"No, " said the girl. "He and my uncle Asa and my cousin--his name isBill Parker--they are all with Longstreet--they call him. "

"Oh, " said the soldiers. "Longstreet? Oh, they're a good smart waysfrom yere. 'Way off up nawtheast. There hain't nothing but cavalry downyere. They're in the infantry, probably. "

"We haven't heard anything from them for days and days, " said Mary. 

"Oh, they're all right in the infantry, " said one man, to be consoling. "The infantry don't do much fighting. They go bellering out in a bigswarm and only a few of 'em get hurt. But if they was in the cavalry--the cavalry--"

Mary interrupted him without intention. "Are you hungry?" she asked. 

The soldiers looked at each other, struck by some sudden and singularshame. They hung their heads. "No, m'm, " replied one at last. 

Santo, in his stall, was tranquilly chewing and chewing. Sometimes helooked benevolently over at them. He was an old horse, and there wassomething about his eyes and his forelock which created the impressionthat he wore spectacles. Mary went and patted his nose. "Well, if youare hungry, I can get you something, " she told the men. "Or you mightcome to the house. "

"We wouldn't dast go to the house, " said one. "That passel of Yanks wasonly a scouting crowd, most like. Just an advance. More coming, likely. "

"Well, I can bring you something, " cried the girl eagerly. "Won't youlet me bring you something?"

"Well, " said a soldier with embarrassment, "we hain't had much. If youcould bring us a little snack--like--just a snack--we'd--"

Without waiting for him to cease, the girl turned toward the door. Butbefore she had reached it she stopped abruptly. "Listen!" she whispered. Her form was bent forward, her head turned and lowered, her handextended toward the men, in a command for silence. 

They could faintly hear the thudding of many hoofs, the clank of arms, and frequent calling voices. 

"By cracky, it's the Yanks!" The soldiers scrambled to their feet andcame toward the door. "I knowed that first crowd was only an advance. "

The girl and the three men peered from the shadows of the barn. Theview of the road was intersected by tree trunks and a little henhouse. However, they could see many horsemen streaming down the road. Thehorsemen were in blue. "Oh, hide--hide--hide!" cried the girl, with asob in her voice. 

"Wait a minute, " whispered a grey soldier excitedly. "Maybe they'regoing along by. No, by thunder, they hain't! They're halting. Scoot, boys!"

They made a noiseless dash into the dark end of the barn. The girl, standing by the door, heard them break forth an instant later inclamorous whispers. "Where'll we hide? Where'll we hide? There hain't aplace to hide!" The girl turned and glanced wildly about the barn. Itseemed true. The stock of hay had grown low under Santo's endlessmunching, and from occasional levyings by passing troopers in grey. Thepoles of the mow were barely covered, save in one corner where there wasa little bunch. 

The girl espied the great feed-box. She ran to it and lifted the lid. "Here! here!" she called. "Get in here. "

They had been tearing noiselessly around the rear part of the barn. Ather low call they came and plunged at the box. They did not all get inat the same moment without a good deal of a tangle. The wounded mengasped and muttered, but they at last were flopped down on the layer offeed which covered the bottom. Swiftly and softly the girl lowered thelid and then turned like a flash toward the door. 

No one appeared there, so she went close to survey the situation. Thetroopers had dismounted, and stood in silence by their horses. 

A grey-bearded man, whose red cheeks and nose shone vividly above thewhiskers, was strolling about with two or three others. They wore double-breasted coats, and faded yellow sashes were wound under their blackleather sword-belts. The grey-bearded soldier was apparently givingorders, pointing here and there. 

Mary tiptoed to the feed-box. "They've all got off their horses, " shesaid to it. A finger projected from a knot-hole near the top, and saidto her very plainly, "Come closer. " She obeyed, and then a muffled voicecould be heard: "Scoot for the house, lady, and if we don't see youagain, why, much obliged for what you done. "

"Good-bye, " she said to the feed-box. 

She made two attempts to walk dauntlessly from the barn, but each timeshe faltered and failed just before she reached the point where shecould have been seen by the blue-coated troopers. At last, however, shemade a sort of a rush forward and went out into the bright sunshine. 

The group of men in double-breasted coats wheeled in her direction atthe instant. The grey-bearded officer forgot to lower his arm which hadbeen stretched forth in giving an order. 

She felt that her feet were touching the ground in a most unnaturalmanner. Her bearing, she believed, was suddenly grown awkward andungainly. Upon her face she thought that this sentence was plainlywritten: "There are three men hidden in the feed-box. "

The grey-bearded soldier came toward her. She stopped; she seemed aboutto run away. But the soldier doffed his little blue cap and lookedamiable. "You live here, I presume?" he said. 

"Yes, " she answered. 

"Well, we are obliged to camp here for the night, and as we've got twowounded men with us I don't suppose you'd mind if we put them in thebarn. "

"In--in the barn?"

He became aware that she was agitated. He smiled assuringly. "Youneedn't be frightened. We won't hurt anything around here. You'll all besafe enough. "

The girl balanced on one foot and swung the other to and fro in thegrass. She was looking down at it. "But--but I don't think ma would likeit if--if you took the barn. "

The old officer laughed. "Wouldn't she?" said he. "That's so. Maybe shewouldn't. " He reflected for a time and then decided cheerfully: "Well, we will have to go ask her, anyhow. Where is she? In the house?"

"Yes, " replied the girl, "she's in the house. She--she'll be scared todeath when she sees you!"

"Well, you go and ask her then, " said the soldier, always wearing abenign smile. "You go ask her and then come and tell me. "

When the girl pushed open the door and entered the kitchen, she foundit empty. "Ma!" she called softly. There was no answer. The kettle stillwas humming its low song. The knife and the curl of potato-skin lay onthe floor. 

She went to her mother's room and entered timidly. The new, lonelyaspect of the house shook her nerves. Upon the bed was a confusion ofcoverings. "Ma!" called the girl, quaking in fear that her mother wasnot there to reply. But there was a sudden turmoil of the quilts, andher mother's head was thrust forth. "Mary!" she cried, in what seemed tobe a supreme astonishment, "I thought--I thought----"

"Oh, ma, " blurted the girl, "there's over a thousand Yankees in theyard, and I've hidden three of our men in the feed-box!"

The elder woman, however, upon the appearance of her daughter had begunto thrash hysterically about on the bed and wail. 

"Ma!" the girl exclaimed, "and now they want to use the barn--and ourmen in the feed-box! What shall I do, ma? What shall I do?"

Her mother did not seem to hear, so absorbed was she in her grievousflounderings and tears. "Ma!" appealed the girl. "Ma!"

For a moment Mary stood silently debating, her lips apart, her eyesfixed. Then she went to the kitchen window and peeked. 

The old officer and the others were staring up the road. She went toanother window in order to get a proper view of the road, and saw thatthey were gazing at a small body of horsemen approaching at a trot andraising much dust. Presently she recognised them as the squad that hadpassed the house earlier, for the young man with the dim yellow chevronstill rode at their head. An unarmed horseman in grey was receivingtheir close attention. 

As they came very near to the house she darted to the first windowagain. The grey-bearded officer was smiling a fine broad smile ofsatisfaction. "So you got him?" he called out. The young sergeant sprangfrom his horse and his brown hand moved in a salute. The girl could nothear his reply. She saw the unarmed horseman in grey stroking a veryblack moustache and looking about him coolly and with an interested air. He appeared so indifferent that she did not understand he was a prisoneruntil she heard the grey-beard call out: "Well, put him in the barn. He'll be safe there, I guess. " A party of troopers moved with theprisoner toward the barn. 

The girl made a sudden gesture of horror, remembering the three men inthe feed-box. 

III

The busy troopers in blue scurried about the long lines of stampinghorses. Men crooked their backs and perspired in order to rub withcloths or bunches of grass these slim equine legs, upon whose splendidmachinery they depended so greatly. The lips of the horses were stillwet and frothy from the steel bars which had wrenched at their mouthsall day. Over their backs and about their noses sped the talk of the men. 

"Moind where yer plug is steppin', Finerty! Keep 'im aff me!"

"An ould elephant! He shtrides like a school-house. "

"Bill's little mar'--she was plum beat when she come in with Crawford'scrowd. "

"Crawford's the hardest-ridin' cavalryman in the army. An' he don't useup a horse, neither--much. They stay fresh when the others are mosta-droppin'. "

"Finerty, will yeh moind that cow a yours?"

Amid a bustle of gossip and banter, the horses retained their air ofsolemn rumination, twisting their lower jaws from side to side andsometimes rubbing noses dreamfully. 

Over in front of the barn three troopers sat talking comfortably. Theircarbines were leaned against the wall. At their side and outlined in theblack of the open door stood a sentry, his weapon resting in the hollowof his arm. Four horses, saddled and accoutred, were conferring withtheir heads close together. The four bridle-reins were flung over a post. 

Upon the calm green of the land, typical in every way of peace, thehues of war brought thither by the troops shone strangely. Mary, gazingcuriously, did not feel that she was contemplating a familiar scene. Itwas no longer the home acres. The new blue, steel, and faded yellowthoroughly dominated the old green and brown. She could hear the voicesof the men, and it seemed from their tone that they had camped there foryears. Everything with them was usual. They had taken possession of thelandscape in such a way that even the old marks appeared strange andformidable to the girl. 

Mary had intended to go and tell the commander in blue that her motherdid not wish his men to use the barn at all, but she paused when sheheard him speak to the sergeant. She thought she perceived then that itmattered little to him what her mother wished, and that an objection byher or by anybody would be futile. She saw the soldiers conduct theprisoner in grey into the barn, and for a long time she watched thethree chatting guards and the pondering sentry. Upon her mind indesolate weight was the recollection of the three men in the feed-box. 

It seemed to her that in a case of this description it was her duty tobe a heroine. In all the stories she had read when at boarding-school inPennsylvania, the girl characters, confronted with such difficulties, invariably did hair-breadth things. True, they were usually bent uponrescuing and recovering their lovers, and neither the calm man in grey, nor any of the three in the feed-box, was lover of hers, but then a realheroine would not pause over this minor question. Plainly a heroinewould take measures to rescue the four men. If she did not at least makethe attempt, she would be false to those carefully constructed idealswhich were the accumulation of years of dreaming. 

But the situation puzzled her. There was the barn with only one door, and with four armed troopers in front of this door, one of them with hisback to the rest of the world, engaged, no doubt, in a steadfastcontemplation of the calm man, and incidentally, of the feed-box. Sheknew, too, that even if she should open the kitchen door, three heads, and perhaps four, would turn casually in her direction. Their ears werereal ears. 

Heroines, she knew, conducted these matters with infinite precision anddespatch. They severed the hero's bonds, cried a dramatic sentence, andstood between him and his enemies until he had run far enough away. Shesaw well, however, that even should she achieve all things up to thepoint where she might take glorious stand between the escaping and thepursuers, those grim troopers in blue would not pause. They would runaround her, make a circuit. One by one she saw the gorgeous contrivancesand expedients of fiction fall before the plain, homely difficulties ofthis situation. They were of no service. Sadly, ruefully, she thought ofthe calm man and of the contents of the feed-box. 

The sum of her invention was that she could sally forth to thecommander of the blue cavalry, and confessing to him that there werethree of her friends and his enemies secreted in the feed-box, pray himto let them depart unmolested. But she was beginning to believe the oldgreybeard to be a bear. It was hardly probable that he would give thisplan his support. It was more probable that he and some of his men wouldat once descend upon the feed-box and confiscate her three friends. Thedifficulty with her idea was that she could not learn its value withouttrying it, and then in case of failure it would be too late for remediesand other plans. She reflected that war made men very unreasonable. 

All that she could do was to stand at the window and mournfully regardthe barn. She admitted this to herself with a sense of deep humiliation. She was not, then, made of that fine stuff, that mental satin, whichenabled some other beings to be of such mighty service to thedistressed. She was defeated by a barn with one door, by four men witheight eyes and eight ears--trivialities that would not impede the realheroine. 

The vivid white light of broad day began slowly to fade. Tones of greycame upon the fields, and the shadows were of lead. In this more sombreatmosphere the fires built by the troops down in the far end of theorchard grew more brilliant, becoming spots of crimson colour in thedark grove. 

The girl heard a fretting voice from her mother's room. "Mary!" Shehastily obeyed the call. She perceived that she had quite forgotten hermother's existence in this time of excitement. 

The elder woman still lay upon the bed. Her face was flushed andperspiration stood amid new wrinkles upon her forehead. Weaving wildglances from side to side, she began to whimper. "Oh, I'm just sick--I'mjust sick! Have those men gone yet? Have they gone?"

The girl smoothed a pillow carefully for her mother's head. "No, ma. They're here yet. But they haven't hurt anything--it doesn't seem. WillI get you something to eat?"

Her mother gestured her away with the impatience of the ill. "No--no--just don't bother me. My head is splitting, and you know very well thatnothing can be done for me when I get one of these spells. It's trouble--that's what makes them. When are those men going? Look here, don't yougo 'way. You stick close to the house now. "

"I'll stay right here, " said the girl. She sat in the gloom andlistened to her mother's incessant moaning. When she attempted to move, her mother cried out at her. When she desired to ask if she might try toalleviate the pain, she was interrupted shortly. Somehow her sitting inpassive silence within hearing of this illness seemed to contribute toher mother's relief. She assumed a posture of submission. Sometimes hermother projected questions concerning the local condition, and althoughshe laboured to be graphic and at the same time soothing, unalarming, her form of reply was always displeasing to the sick woman, and broughtforth ejaculations of angry impatience. 

Eventually the woman slept in the manner of one worn from terriblelabour. The girl went slowly and softly to the kitchen. When she lookedfrom the window, she saw the four soldiers still at the barn door. Inthe west, the sky was yellow. Some tree-trunks intersecting it appearedblack as streaks of ink. Soldiers hovered in blue clouds about thebright splendour of the fires in the orchard. There were glimmers ofsteel. 

The girl sat in the new gloom of the kitchen and watched. The soldierslit a lantern and hung it in the barn. Its rays made the form of thesentry seem gigantic. Horses whinnied from the orchard. There was a lowhum of human voices. Sometimes small detachments of troopers rode pastthe front of the house. The girl heard the abrupt calls of sentries. Shefetched some food and ate it from her hand, standing by the window. Shewas so afraid that something would occur that she barely left her postfor an instant. 

A picture of the interior of the barn hung vividly in her mind. Sherecalled the knot-holes in the boards at the rear, but she admitted thatthe prisoners could not escape through them. She remembered someinadequacies of the roof, but these also counted for nothing. Whenconfronting the problem, she felt her ambitions, her ideals tumblingheadlong like cottages of straw. 

Once she felt that she had decided to reconnoitre at any rate. It wasnight; the lantern at the barn and the camp fires made everythingwithout their circle into masses of heavy mystic blackness. She took twosteps toward the door. But there she paused. Innumerable possibilitiesof danger had assailed her mind. She returned to the window and stoodwavering. At last, she went swiftly to the door, opened it, and slidnoiselessly into the darkness. 

For a moment she regarded the shadows. Down in the orchard the campfires of the troops appeared precisely like a great painting, all inreds upon a black cloth. The voices of the troopers still hummed. Thegirl started slowly off in the opposite direction. Her eyes were fixedin a stare; she studied the darkness in front for a moment, before sheventured upon a forward step. Unconsciously, her throat was arranged fora sudden shrill scream. High in the tree-branches she could hear thevoice of the wind, a melody of the night, low and sad, the plaint of anendless, incommunicable sorrow. Her own distress, the plight of the menin grey--these near matters as well as all she had known or imagined ofgrief--everything was expressed in this soft mourning of the wind in thetrees. At first she felt like weeping. This sound told her of humanimpotency and doom. Then later the trees and the wind breathed strengthto her, sang of sacrifice, of dauntless effort, of hard carven facesthat did not blanch when Duty came at midnight or at noon. 

She turned often to scan the shadowy figures that moved from time totime in the light at the barn door. Once she trod upon a stick, and itflopped, crackling in the intolerable manner of all sticks. At thisnoise, however, the guards at the barn made no sign. Finally, she waswhere she could see the knot-holes in the rear of the structure gleaminglike pieces of metal from the effect of the light within. Scarcelybreathing in her excitement she glided close and applied an eye to aknot-hole. She had barely achieved one glance at the interior before shesprang back shuddering. 

For the unconscious and cheerful sentry at the door was swearing awayin flaming sentences, heaping one gorgeous oath upon another, making aconflagration of his description of his troop-horse. "Why, " he wasdeclaring to the calm prisoner in grey, "you ain't got a horse in yourhull ---- army that can run forty rod with that there little mar'!"

As in the outer darkness Mary cautiously returned to the knot-hole, thethree guards in front suddenly called in low tones: "S-s-s-h!" "Quit, Pete; here comes the lieutenant. " The sentry had apparently been aboutto resume his declamation, but at these warnings he suddenly posed in asoldierly manner. 

A tall and lean officer with a smooth face entered the barn. The sentrysaluted primly. The officer flashed a comprehensive glance about him. "Everything all right?"

"All right, sir. "

This officer had eyes like the points of stilettos. The lines from hisnose to the corners of his mouth were deep, and gave him a slightlydisagreeable aspect, but somewhere in his face there was a quality ofsingular thoughtfulness, as of the absorbed student dealing ingeneralities, which was utterly in opposition to the rapacious keennessof the eyes which saw everything. 

Suddenly he lifted a long finger and pointed. "What's that?"

"That? That's a feed-box, I suppose. "

"What's in it?"

"I don't know. I--"

"You ought to know, " said the officer sharply. He walked over to thefeed-box and flung up the lid. With a sweeping gesture he reached downand scooped a handful of feed. "You ought to know what's in everythingwhen you have prisoners in your care, " he added, scowling. 

During the time of this incident, the girl had nearly swooned. Herhands searched weakly over the boards for something to which to cling. With the pallor of the dying she had watched the downward sweep of theofficer's arm, which after all had only brought forth a handful of feed. The result was a stupefaction of her mind. She was astonished out of hersenses at this spectacle of three large men metamorphosed into a handfulof feed. 

IV

It is perhaps a singular thing that this absence of the three men fromthe feed-box at the time of the sharp lieutenant's investigation shouldterrify the girl more than it should joy her. That for which she hadprayed had come to pass. Apparently the escape of these men in the faceof every improbability had been granted her, but her dominating emotionwas fright. The feed-box was a mystic and terrible machine, like somedark magician's trap. She felt it almost possible that she should seethe three weird man floating spectrally away through the air. Sheglanced with swift apprehension behind her, and when the dazzle from thelantern's light had left her eyes, saw only the dim hillside stretchedin solemn silence. 

The interior of the barn possessed for her another fascination becauseit was now uncanny. It contained that extraordinary feed-box. When shepeeped again at the knot-hole, the calm, grey prisoner was seated uponthe feed-box, thumping it with his dangling, careless heels as if itwere in nowise his conception of a remarkable feed-box. The sentry alsostood facing it. His carbine he held in the hollow of his arm. His legswere spread apart, and he mused. From without came the low mumble of thethree other troopers. The sharp lieutenant had vanished. 

The trembling yellow light of the lantern caused the figures of the mento cast monstrous wavering shadows. There were spaces of gloom whichshrouded ordinary things in impressive garb. The roof presented aninscrutable blackness, save where small rifts in the shingles glowedphosphorescently. Frequently old Santo put down a thunderous hoof. Theheels of the prisoner made a sound like the booming of a wild kind ofdrum. When the men moved their heads, their eyes shone with ghoulishwhiteness, and their complexions were always waxen and unreal. And therewas that profoundly strange feed-box, imperturbable with its burden offantastic mystery. 

Suddenly from down near her feet the girl heard a crunching sound, asort of a nibbling, as if some silent and very discreet terrier was atwork upon the turf. She faltered back; here was no doubt anothergrotesque detail of this most unnatural episode. She did not run, because physically she was in the power of these events. Her feetchained her to the ground in submission to this march of terror afterterror. As she stared at the spot from which this sound seemed to come, there floated through her mind a vague, sweet vision--a vision of hersafe little room, in which at this hour she usually was sleeping. 

The scratching continued faintly and with frequent pauses, as if theterrier was then listening. When the girl first removed her eyes fromthe knot-hole the scene appeared of one velvet blackness; then graduallyobjects loomed with a dim lustre. She could see now where the tops ofthe trees joined the sky and the form of the barn was before her dyed inheavy purple. She was ever about to shriek, but no sound came from herconstricted throat. She gazed at the ground with the expression ofcountenance of one who watches the sinister-moving grass where a serpentapproaches. 

Dimly she saw a piece of sod wrenched free and drawn under the greatfoundation-beam of the barn. Once she imagined that she saw human hands, not outlined at all, but sufficient, in colour, form, or movement tomake subtle suggestion. 

Then suddenly a thought that illuminated the entire situation flashedin her mind like a light. The three men, late of the feed-box, werebeneath the floor of the barn and were now scraping their way under thisbeam. She did not consider for a moment how they could come there. Theywere marvellous creatures. The supernatural was to be expected of them. She no longer trembled, for she was possessed upon this instant of themost unchangeable species of conviction. The evidence before heramounted to no evidence at all, but nevertheless her opinion grew in aninstant from an irresponsible acorn to a rooted and immovable tree. Itwas as if she was on a jury. 

She stooped down hastily and scanned the ground. There she indeed saw apair of hands hauling at the dirt where the sod had been displaced. Softly, in a whisper like a breath, she said, "Hey!"

The dim hands were drawn hastily under the barn. The girl reflected fora moment. Then she stooped and whispered: "Hey! It's me!"

After a time there was a resumption of the digging. The ghostly handsbegan once more their cautious mining. She waited. In hollowreverberations from the interior of the barn came the frequent sounds ofold Santo's lazy movements. The sentry conversed with the prisoner. 

At last the girl saw a head thrust slowly from under the beam. Sheperceived the face of one of the miraculous soldiers from the feed-box. A pair of eyes glintered and wavered, then finally settled upon her, apale statue of a girl. The eyes became lit with a kind of humorousgreeting. An arm gestured at her. 

Stooping, she breathed, "All right. " The man drew himself silently backunder the beam. A moment later the pair of hands resumed their cautioustask. Ultimately the head and arms of the man were thrust strangely fromthe earth. He was lying on his back. The girl thought of the dirt in hishair. Wriggling slowly and pushing at the beam above him he forced hisway out of the curious little passage. He twisted his body and raisedhimself upon his hands. He grinned at the girl and drew his feetcarefully from under the beam. When he at last stood erect beside her, he at once began mechanically to brush the dirt from his clothes withhis hands. In the barn the sentry and his prisoner were evidentlyengaged in an argument. 

The girl and the first miraculous soldier signalled warily. It seemedthat they feared that their arms would make noises in passing throughthe air. Their lips moved, conveying dim meanings. 

In this sign-language the girl described the situation in the barn. With guarded motions, she told him of the importance of absolutestillness. He nodded, and then in the same manner he told her of his twocompanions under the barn floor. He informed her again of their woundedstate, and wagged his head to express his despair. He contorted hisface, to tell how sore were their arms; and jabbed the air mournfully, to express their remote geographical position. 

This signalling was interrupted by the sound of a body being dragged ordragging itself with slow, swishing sound under the barn. The sound wastoo loud for safety. They rushed to the hole and began to semaphoreuntil a shaggy head appeared with rolling eyes and quick grin. 

With frantic downward motions of their arms they suppressed this grinand with it the swishing noise. In dramatic pantomime they informed thishead of the terrible consequences of so much noise. The head nodded, andpainfully, but with extreme care, the second man pushed and pulledhimself from the hole. 

In a faint whisper the first man said, "Where's Sim?"

The second man made low reply: "He's right here. " He motionedreassuringly toward the hole. 

When the third head appeared, a soft smile of glee came upon each face, and the mute group exchanged expressive glances. 

When they all stood together, free from this tragic barn, they breatheda long sigh that was contemporaneous with another smile and anotherexchange of glances. 

One of the men tiptoed to a knot-hole and peered into the barn. Thesentry was at that moment speaking. "Yes, we know 'em all. There isn't ahouse in this region that we don't know who is in it most of the time. We collar 'em once in a while--like we did you. Now, that house outyonder, we----"

The man suddenly left the knot-hole and returned to the others. Uponhis face, dimly discerned, there was an indication that he had made anastonishing discovery. The others questioned him with their eyes, but hesimply waved an arm to express his inability to speak at that spot. Heled them back toward the hill, prowling carefully. At a safe distancefrom the barn he halted, and as they grouped eagerly about him, heexploded in an intense undertone: "Why, that--that's Cap'n Sawyer theygot in yonder. "

"Cap'n Sawyer!" incredulously whispered the other men. 

But the girl had something to ask. "How did you get out of that feed-box?" He smiled. "Well, when you put us in there, we was just in aminute when we allowed it wasn't a mighty safe place, and we allowedwe'd get out. And we did. We skedaddled 'round and 'round until it'peared like we was going to get cotched, and then we flung ourselvesdown in the cow-stalls where it's low-like--just dirt floor--and then wejust naturally went a-whooping under the barn floor when the Yanks come. And we didn't know Cap'n Sawyer by his voice nohow. We heard 'imdiscoursing, and we allowed it was a mighty pert man, but we didn't knowthat it was him. No, m'm. "

These three men, so recently from a situation of peril, seemed suddenlyto have dropped all thought of it. They stood with sad faces looking atthe barn. They seemed to be making no plans at all to reach a place ofmore complete safety. They were halted and stupefied by some unknowncalamity. 

"How do you raikon they cotch him, Sim?" one whispered mournfully. 

"I don't know, " replied another in the same tone. 

Another with a low snarl expressed in two words his opinion of themethods of Fate: "Oh, hell!"

The three men started then as if simultaneously stung, and gazed at theyoung girl who stood silently near them. The man who had sworn began tomake agitated apology: "Pardon, miss! 'Pon my soul, I clean forgot youwas by. 'Deed, and I wouldn't swear like that if I had knowed. 'Deed, Iwouldn't. "

The girl did not seem to hear him. She was staring at the barn. Suddenly she turned and whispered, "Who is he?"

"He's Cap'n Sawyer, m'm, " they told her sorrowfully. "He's our owncap'n. He's been in command of us yere since a long time. He's got folksabout yere. Raikon they cotch him while he was a-visiting. "

She was still for a time, and then, awed, she said: "Will they--willthey hang him?"

"No, m'm. Oh no, m'm. Don't raikon no such thing. No, m'm. "

The group became absorbed in a contemplation of the barn. For a time noone moved nor spoke. At last the girl was aroused by slight sounds, andturning, she perceived that the three men who had so recently escapedfrom the barn were now advancing toward it. 

V

The girl, waiting in the darkness, expected to hear the sudden crashand uproar of a fight as soon as the three creeping men should reach thebarn. She reflected in an agony upon the swift disaster that wouldbefall any enterprise so desperate. She had an impulse to beg them tocome away. The grass rustled in silken movements as she sped toward thebarn. 

When she arrived, however, she gazed about her bewildered. The men weregone. She searched with her eyes, trying to detect some moving thing, but she could see nothing. 

Left alone again, she began to be afraid of the night. The greatstretches of darkness could hide crawling dangers. From sheer desire tosee a human, she was obliged to peep again at the knot-hole. The sentryhad apparently wearied of talking. Instead, he was reflecting. Theprisoner still sat on the feed-box, moodily staring at the floor. Thegirl felt in one way that she was looking at a ghastly group in wax. Shestarted when the old horse put down an echoing hoof. She wished the menwould speak; their silence re-enforced the strange aspect. They mighthave been two dead men. 

The girl felt impelled to look at the corner of the interior where werethe cow-stalls. There was no light there save the appearance of peculiargrey haze which marked the track of the dimming rays of the lantern. Allelse was sombre shadow. At last she saw something move there. It mighthave been as small as a rat, or it might have been a part of somethingas large as a man. At any rate, it proclaimed that something in thatspot was alive. At one time she saw it plainly, and at other times itvanished, because her fixture of gaze caused her occasionally to greatlytangle and blur those peculiar shadows and faint lights. At last, however, she perceived a human head. It was monstrously dishevelled andwild. It moved slowly forward until its glance could fall upon theprisoner and then upon the sentry. The wandering rays caused the eyes toglitter like silver. The girl's heart pounded so that she put her handover it. 

The sentry and the prisoner remained immovably waxen, and over in thegloom the head thrust from the floor watched them with its silver eyes. 

Finally, the prisoner slipped from the feed-box, and raising his arms, yawned at great length. "Oh, well, " he remarked, "you boys will get agood licking if you fool around here much longer. That's somesatisfaction, anyhow, even if you did bag me. You'll get a goodwalloping. " He reflected for a moment, and decided: "I'm sort of willingto be captured if you fellows only get a d----d good licking for beingso smart. "

The sentry looked up and smiled a superior smile. "Licking, hey?Nixey!" He winked exasperatingly at the prisoner. "You fellows are notfast enough, my boy. Why didn't you lick us at ----? and at ----? and at----?" He named some of the great battles. 

To this the captive officer blurted in angry astonishment: "Why, we did!"

The sentry winked again in profound irony. "Yes, I know you did. Ofcourse. You whipped us, didn't you? Fine kind of whipping that was! Why, we----"

He suddenly ceased, smitten mute by a sound that broke the stillness ofthe night. It was the sharp crack of a distant shot that made wildechoes among the hills. It was instantly followed by the hoarse cry of ahuman voice, a far-away yell of warning, singing of surprise, peril, fear of death. A moment later there was a distant, fierce spattering ofshots. The sentry and the prisoner stood facing each other, their lipsapart, listening. 

The orchard at that instant awoke to sudden tumult. There were the thudand scramble and scamper of feet, the mellow, swift clash of arms, men'svoices in question, oath, command, hurried and unhurried, resolute andfrantic. A horse sped along the road at a raging gallop. A loud voiceshouted, "What is it, Ferguson?" Another voice yelled somethingincoherent. There was a sharp, discordant chorus of command. Anuproarious volley suddenly rang from the orchard. The prisoner in greymoved from his intent, listening attitude. Instantly the eyes of thesentry blazed, and he said with a new and terrible sternness: "Standwhere you are!"

The prisoner trembled in his excitement. Expressions of delight andtriumph bubbled to his lips. "A surprise, by Gawd! Now--now, you'll see!"

The sentry stolidly swung his carbine to his shoulder. He sightedcarefully along the barrel until it pointed at the prisoner's head, about at his nose. "Well, I've got you, anyhow. Remember that! Don'tmove!"

The prisoner could not keep his arms from nervously gesturing. "Iwon't; but----"

"And shut your mouth!"

The three comrades of the sentry flung themselves into view. "Pete--devil of a row!--can you----"

"I've got him, " said the sentry calmly and without moving. It was as ifthe barrel of the carbine rested on piers of stone. The three comradesturned and plunged into the darkness. 

In the orchard it seemed as if two gigantic animals were engaged in amad, floundering encounter, snarling, howling in a whirling chaos ofnoise and motion. In the barn the prisoner and his guard faced eachother in silence. 

As for the girl at the knot-hole, the sky had fallen at the beginningof this clamour. She would not have been astonished to see the starsswinging from their abodes, and the vegetation, the barn, all blow away. It was the end of everything, the grand universal murder. When two ofthe three miraculous soldiers who formed the original feed-box corpsemerged in detail from the hole under the beam, and slid away into thedarkness, she did no more than glance at them. 

Suddenly she recollected the head with silver eyes. She started forwardand again applied her eyes to the knot-hole. Even with the dinresounding from the orchard, from up the road and down the road, fromthe heavens and from the deep earth, the central fascination was thismystic head. There, to her, was the dark god of the tragedy. 

The prisoner in grey at this moment burst into a laugh that was no morethan a hysterical gurgle. "Well, you can't hold that gun out for ever!Pretty soon you'll have to lower it. "

The sentry's voice sounded slightly muffled, for his cheek was pressedagainst the weapon. "I won't be tired for some time yet. "

The girl saw the head slowly rise, the eyes fixed upon the sentry'sface. A tall, black figure slunk across the cow-stalls and vanished backof old Santo's quarters. She knew what was to come to pass. She knewthis grim thing was upon a terrible mission, and that it would reappearagain at the head of the little passage between Santo's stall and thewall, almost at the sentry's elbow; and yet when she saw a faintindication as of a form crouching there, a scream from an utterly newalarm almost escaped her. 

The sentry's arms, after all, were not of granite. He moved restively. At last he spoke in his even, unchanging tone: "Well, I guess you'llhave to climb into that feed-box. Step back and lift the lid. "

"Why, you don't mean----"

"Step back!"

The girl felt a cry of warning arising to her lips as she gazed at thissentry. She noted every detail of his facial expression. She saw, moreover, his mass of brown hair bunching disgracefully about his ears, his clear eyes lit now with a hard, cold light, his forehead puckered ina mighty scowl, the ring upon the third finger of the left hand. "Oh, they won't kill him! Surely they won't kill him!" The noise of the fightin the orchard was the loud music, the thunder and lightning, therioting of the tempest which people love during the critical scene of atragedy. 

When the prisoner moved back in reluctant obedience, he faced for aninstant the entrance of the little passage, and what he saw there musthave been written swiftly, graphically in his eyes. And the sentry readit and knew then that he was upon the threshold of his death. In afraction of time, certain information went from the grim thing in thepassage to the prisoner, and from the prisoner to the sentry. But atthat instant the black formidable figure arose, towered, and made itsleap. A new shadow flashed across the floor when the blow was struck. 

As for the girl at the knot-hole, when she returned to sense she foundherself standing with clenched hands and screaming with her might. 

As if her reason had again departed from her, she ran around the barn, in at the door, and flung herself sobbing beside the body of the soldierin blue. 

The uproar of the fight became at last coherent, inasmuch as one partywas giving shouts of supreme exultation. The firing no longer sounded incrashes; it was now expressed in spiteful crackles, the last words ofthe combat, spoken with feminine vindictiveness. 

Presently there was a thud of flying feet. A grimy, panting, red-facedmob of troopers in blue plunged into the barn, became instantly frozento attitudes of amazement and rage, and then roared in one great chorus:"He's gone!"

The girl who knelt beside the body upon the floor turned toward themher lamenting eyes and cried: "He's not dead, is he? He can't be dead?"

They thronged forward. The sharp lieutenant who had been so particularabout the feed-box knelt by the side of the girl, and laid his headagainst the chest of the prostrate soldier. "Why, no, " he said, risingand looking at the man. "He's all right. Some of you boys throw somewater on him. "

"Are you sure?" demanded the girl feverishly. 

"Of course! He'll be better after awhile. "

"Oh!" said she softly, and then looked down at the sentry. She startedto arise, and the lieutenant reached down and hoisted rather awkwardlyat her arm. 

"Don't you worry about him. He's all right. "

She turned her face with its curving lips and shining eyes once moretoward the unconscious soldier upon the floor. The troopers made a laneto the door, the lieutenant bowed, the girl vanished. 

"Queer, " said a young officer. "Girl very clearly worst kind of rebel, and yet she falls to weeping and wailing like mad over one of herenemies. Be around in the morning with all sorts of doctoring--you seeif she ain't. Queer. "

The sharp lieutenant shrugged his shoulders. After reflection heshrugged his shoulders again. He said: "War changes many things; but itdoesn't change everything, thank God!"

A MYSTERY OF HEROISM

The dark uniforms of the men were so coated with dust from theincessant wrestling of the two armies that the regiment almost seemed apart of the clay bank which shielded them from the shells. On the top ofthe hill a battery was arguing in tremendous roars with some other guns, and to the eye of the infantry, the artillerymen, the guns, thecaissons, the horses, were distinctly outlined upon the blue sky. When apiece was fired, a red streak as round as a log flashed low in theheavens, like a monstrous bolt of lightning. The men of the battery worewhite duck trousers, which somehow emphasised their legs: and when theyran and crowded in little groups at the bidding of the shoutingofficers, it was more impressive than usual to the infantry. 

Fred Collins, of A Company, was saying: "Thunder, I wisht I had adrink. Ain't there any water round here?" Then, somebody yelled: "Theregoes th' bugler!"

As the eyes of half the regiment swept in one machine-like movement, there was an instant's picture of a horse in a great convulsive leap ofa death-wound and a rider leaning back with a crooked arm and spreadfingers before his face. On the ground was the crimson terror of anexploding shell, with fibres of flame that seemed like lances. Aglittering bugle swung clear of the rider's back as fell headlong thehorse and the man. In the air was an odour as from a conflagration. 

Sometimes they of the infantry looked down at a fair little meadowwhich spread at their feet. Its long, green grass was rippling gently ina breeze. Beyond it was the grey form of a house half torn to pieces byshells and by the busy axes of soldiers who had pursued firewood. Theline of an old fence was now dimly marked by long weeds and by anoccasional post. A shell had blown the well-house to fragments. Littlelines of grey smoke ribboning upward from some embers indicated theplace where had stood the barn. 

From beyond a curtain of green woods there came the sound of somestupendous scuffle, as if two animals of the size of islands werefighting. At a distance there were occasional appearances of swift-moving men, horses, batteries, flags, and, with the crashing of infantryvolleys were heard, often, wild and frenzied cheers. In the midst of itall Smith and Ferguson, two privates of A Company, were engaged in aheated discussion, which involved the greatest questions of the nationalexistence. 

The battery on the hill presently engaged in a frightful duel. Thewhite legs of the gunners scampered this way and that way, and theofficers redoubled their shouts. The guns, with their demeanours ofstolidity and courage, were typical of something infinitely self-possessed in this clamour of death that swirled around the hill. 

One of a "swing" team was suddenly smitten quivering to the ground, andhis maddened brethren dragged his torn body in their struggle to escapefrom this turmoil and danger. A young soldier astride one of the leadersswore and fumed in his saddle, and furiously jerked at the bridle. Anofficer screamed out an order so violently that his voice broke andended the sentence in a falsetto shriek. 

The leading company of the infantry regiment was somewhat exposed, andthe colonel ordered it moved more fully under the shelter of the hill. There was the clank of steel against steel. 

A lieutenant of the battery rode down and passed them, holding hisright arm carefully in his left hand. And it was as if this arm was notat all a part of him, but belonged to another man. His sober andreflective charger went slowly. The officer's face was grimy andperspiring, and his uniform was tousled as if he had been in directgrapple with an enemy. He smiled grimly when the men stared at him. Heturned his horse toward the meadow. 

Collins, of A Company, said: "I wisht I had a drink. I bet there'swater in that there ol' well yonder!"

"Yes; but how you goin' to git it?"

For the little meadow which intervened was now suffering a terribleonslaught of shells. Its green and beautiful calm had vanished utterly. Brown earth was being flung in monstrous handfuls. And there was amassacre of the young blades of grass. They were being torn, burned, obliterated. Some curious fortune of the battle had made this gentlelittle meadow the object of the red hate of the shells, and each one asit exploded seemed like an imprecation in the face of a maiden. 

The wounded officer who was riding across this expanse said to himself:"Why, they couldn't shoot any harder if the whole army was massed here!"

A shell struck the grey ruins of the house, and as, after the roar, theshattered wall fell in fragments, there was a noise which resembled theflapping of shutters during a wild gale of winter. Indeed, the infantrypaused in the shelter of the bank appeared as men standing upon a shorecontemplating a madness of the sea. The angel of calamity had under itsglance the battery upon the hill. Fewer white-legged men laboured aboutthe guns. A shell had smitten one of the pieces, and after the flare, the smoke, the dust, the wrath of this blow were gone, it was possibleto see white lugs stretched horizontally upon the ground. And at thatinterval to the rear, where it is the business of battery horses tostand with their noses to the fight awaiting the command to drag theirguns out of the destruction, or into it, or wheresoever theseincomprehensible humans demanded with whip and spur--in this line ofpassive and dumb spectators, whose fluttering hearts yet would not letthem forget the iron laws of man's control of them--in this rank ofbrute-soldiers there had been relentless and hideous carnage. From theruck of bleeding and prostrate horses, the men of the infantry could seeone animal raising its stricken body with its fore legs, and turning itsnose with mystic and profound eloquence toward the sky. 

Some comrades joked Collins about his thirst. "Well, if yeh want adrink so bad, why don't yeh go git it?"

"Well, I will in a minnet, if yeh don't shut up!"

A lieutenant of artillery floundered his horse straight down the hillwith as little concern as if it were level ground. As he galloped pastthe colonel of the infantry, he threw up his hand in swift salute. "We've got to get out of that, " he roared angrily. He was a black-bearded officer, and his eyes, which resembled beads, sparkled likethose of an insane man. His jumping horse sped along the column ofinfantry. 

The fat major, standing carelessly with his sword held horizontallybehind him and with his legs far apart, looked after the recedinghorseman and laughed. "He wants to get back with orders pretty quick, orthere'll be no batt'ry left, " he observed. 

The wise young captain of the second company hazarded to the lieutenant-colonel that the enemy's infantry would probably soon attack the hill, and the lieutenant-colonel snubbed him. 

A private in one of the rear companies looked out over the meadow, andthen turned to a companion and said, "Look there, Jim!" It was thewounded officer from the battery, who some time before had started toride across the meadow, supporting his right arm carefully with his lefthand. This man had encountered a shell apparently at a time when no oneperceived him, and he could now be seen lying face downward with astirruped foot stretched across the body of his dead horse. A leg of thecharger extended slantingly upward precisely as stiff as a stake. Aroundthis motionless pair the shells still howled. 

There was a quarrel in A Company. Collins was shaking his fist in thefaces of some laughing comrades. "Dern yeh! I ain't afraid t' go. If yehsay much, I will go!"

"Of course, yeh will! You'll run through that there medder, won't yeh?"

Collins said, in a terrible voice: "You see now!" At this ominousthreat his comrades broke into renewed jeers. 

Collins gave them a dark scowl, and went to find his captain. Thelatter was conversing with the colonel of the regiment. 

"Captain, " said Collins, saluting and standing at attention--in thosedays all trousers bagged at the knees--"Captain, I wan't t' getpermission to go git some water from that there well over yonder!"

The colonel and the captain swung about simultaneously and staredacross the meadow. The captain laughed. "You must be pretty thirsty, Collins?"

"Yes, sir, I am. "

"Well--ah, " said the captain. After a moment, he asked, "Can't you wait?"

"No, sir. "

The colonel was watching Collins's face. "Look here, my lad, " he said, in a pious sort of a voice--"Look here, my lad"--Collins was not a lad--"don't you think that's taking pretty big risks for a little drink ofwater. "

"I dunno, " said Collins uncomfortably. Some of the resentment towardhis companions, which perhaps had forced him into this affair, wasbeginning to fade. "I dunno wether 'tis. "

The colonel and the captain contemplated him for a time. 

"Well, " said the captain finally. 

"Well, " said the colonel, "if you want to go, why, go. "

Collins saluted. "Much obliged t' yeh. "

As he moved away the colonel called after him. "Take some of the otherboys' canteens with you an' hurry back now. "

"Yes, sir, I will. "

The colonel and the captain looked at each other then, for it hadsuddenly occurred that they could not for the life of them tell whetherCollins wanted to go or whether he did not. 

They turned to regard Collins, and as they perceived him surrounded bygesticulating comrades, the colonel said: "Well, by thunder! I guesshe's going. "

Collins appeared as a man dreaming. In the midst of the questions, theadvice, the warnings, all the excited talk of his company mates, hemaintained a curious silence. 

They were very busy in preparing him for his ordeal. When theyinspected him carefully, it was somewhat like the examination thatgrooms give a horse before a race; and they were amazed, staggered bythe whole affair. Their astonishment found vent in strange repetitions. 

"Are yeh sure a-goin'?" they demanded again and again. 

"Certainly I am, " cried Collins at last furiously. 

He strode sullenly away from them. He was swinging five or six canteensby their cords. It seemed that his cap would not remain firmly on hishead, and often he reached and pulled it down over his brow. 

There was a general movement in the compact column. The long animal-likething moved slightly. Its four hundred eyes were turned upon the figureof Collins. 

"Well, sir, if that ain't th' derndest thing! I never thought FredCollins had the blood in him for that kind of business. "

"What's he goin' to do, anyhow?"

"He's goin' to that well there after water. "

"We ain't dyin' of thirst, are we? That's foolishness. "

"Well, somebody put him up to it, an' he's doin' it. "

"Say, he must be a desperate cuss. "

When Collins faced the meadow and walked away from the regiment, he wasvaguely conscious that a chasm, the deep valley of all prides, wassuddenly between him and his comrades. It was provisional, but theprovision was that he return as a victor. He had blindly been led byquaint emotions, and laid himself under an obligation to walk squarelyup to the face of death. 

But he was not sure that he wished to make a retraction, even if hecould do so without shame. As a matter of truth, he was sure of verylittle. He was mainly surprised. 

It seemed to him supernaturally strange that he had allowed his mind tomanoeuvre his body into such a situation. He understood that it might becalled dramatically great. 

However, he had no full appreciation of anything, excepting that he wasactually conscious of being dazed. He could feel his dulled mid gropingafter the form and colour of this incident. He wondered why he did notfeel some keen agony of fear cutting his sense like a knife. He wonderedat this, because human expression had said loudly for centuries that menshould feel afraid of certain things, and that all men who did not feelthis fear were phenomena--heroes. 

He was, then, a hero. He suffered that disappointment which we wouldall have if we discovered that we were ourselves capable of those deedswhich we most admire in history and legend. This, then, was a hero. After all, heroes were not much. 

No, it could not be true. He was not a hero. Heroes had no shames intheir lives, and, as for him, he remembered borrowing fifteen dollarsfrom a friend and promising to pay it back the next day, and thenavoiding that friend for ten months. When at home his mother had arousedhim for the early labour of his life on the farm, it had often been hisfashion to be irritable, childish, diabolical; and his mother had diedsince he had come to the war. 

He saw that, in this matter of the well, the canteens, the shells, hewas an intruder in the land of fine deeds. 

He was now about thirty paces from his comrades. The regiment had justturned its many faces toward him. 

From the forest of terrific noises there suddenly emerged a littleuneven line of men. They fired fiercely and rapidly at distant foliageon which appeared little puffs of white smoke. The spatter of skirmishfiring was added to the thunder of the guns on the hill. The little lineof men ran forward. A colour-sergeant fell flat with his flag as if hehad slipped on ice. There was hoarse cheering from this distant field. 

Collins suddenly felt that two demon fingers were pressed into hisears. He could see nothing but flying arrows, flaming red. He lurchedfrom the shock of this explosion, but he made a mad rush for the house, which he viewed as a man submerged to the neck in a boiling surf mightview the shore. In the air, little pieces of shell howled and theearthquake explosions drove him insane with the menace of their roar. Ashe ran the canteens knocked together with a rhythmical tinkling. 

As he neared the house, each detail of the scene became vivid to him. He was aware of some bricks of the vanished chimney lying on the sod. There was a door which hung by one hinge. 

Rifle bullets called forth by the insistent skirmishers came from thefar-off bank of foliage. They mingled with the shells and the pieces ofshells until the air was torn in all directions by hootings, yells, howls. The sky was full of fiends who directed all their wild rage athis head. 

When he came to the well, he flung himself face downward and peeredinto its darkness. There were furtive silver glintings some feet fromthe surface. He grabbed one of the canteens, and, unfastening its cap, swung it down by the cord. The water flowed slowly in with an indolentgurgle. 

And now as he lay with his face turned away he was suddenly smittenwith the terror. It came upon his heart like the grasp of claws. All thepower faded from his muscles. For an instant he was no more than a deadman. 

The canteen filled with a maddening slowness, in the manner of allbottles. Presently he recovered his strength and addressed a screamingoath to it. He leaned over until it seemed as if he intended to try topush water into it with his hands. His eyes as he gazed down into thewell shone like two pieces of metal, and in their expression was a greatappeal and a great curse. The stupid water derided him. 

There was the blaring thunder of a shell. Crimson light shone throughthe swift-boiling smoke, and made a pink reflection on part of the wallof the well. Collins jerked out his arm and canteen with the same motionthat a man would use in withdrawing his head from a furnace. 

He scrambled erect and glared and hesitated. On the ground near him laythe old well bucket, with a length of rusty chain. He lowered it swiftlyinto the well. The bucket struck the water and then, turning lazilyover, sank. When, with hand reaching tremblingly over hand, he hauled itout, it knocked often against the walls of the well and spilled some ofits contents. 

In running with a filled bucket, a man can adopt but one kind of gait. So through this terrible field, over which screamed practical angels ofdeath, Collins ran in the manner of a farmer chased out of a dairy by abull. 

His face went staring white with anticipation--anticipation of a blowthat would whirl him around and down. He would fall as he had seen othermen fall, the life knocked out of them so suddenly that their knees wereno more quick to touch the ground than their heads. He saw the long blueline of the regiment, but his comrades were standing looking at him fromthe edge of an impossible star. He was aware of some deep wheel-ruts andhoof-prints in the sod beneath his feet. 

The artillery officer who had fallen in this meadow had been makinggroans in the teeth of the tempest of sound. These futile cries, wrenched from him by his agony, were heard only by shells, bullets. Whenwild-eyed Collins came running, this officer raised himself. His facecontorted and blanched from pain, he was about to utter some greatbeseeching cry. But suddenly his face straightened and he called:

"Say, young man, give me a drink of water, will you?"

Collins had no room amid his emotions for surprise. He was mad from thethreats of destruction. 

"I can't!" he screamed, and in his reply was a full description of hisquaking apprehension. His cap was gone and his hair was riotous. Hisclothes made it appear that he had been dragged over the ground by theheels. He ran on. 

The officer's head sank down, and one elbow crooked. His foot in itsbrass-bound stirrup still stretched over the body of his horse, and theother leg was under the steed. 

But Collins turned. He came dashing back. His face had now turned grey, and in his eyes was all terror. "Here it is! here it is!"

The officer was as a man gone in drink. His arm bent like a twig. Hishead drooped as if his neck were of willow. He was sinking to theground, to lie face downward. 

Collins grabbed him by the shoulder. "Here it is. Here's your drink. Turn over. Turn over, man, for God's sake!"

With Collins hauling at his shoulder, the officer twisted his body andfell with his face turned toward that region where lived the unspeakablenoises of the swirling missiles. There was the faintest shadow of asmile on his lips as he looked at Collins. He gave a sigh, a littleprimitive breath like that from a child. 

Collins tried to hold the bucket steadily, but his shaking hands causedthe water to splash all over the face of the dying man. Then he jerkedit away and ran on. 

The regiment gave him a welcoming roar. The grimed faces were wrinkledin laughter. 

His captain waved the bucket away. "Give it to the men!"

The two genial, skylarking young lieutenants were the first to gainpossession of it. They played over it in their fashion. 

When one tried to drink the other teasingly knocked his elbow. "Don't, Billie! You'll make me spill it, " said the one. The other laughed. 

Suddenly there was an oath, the thud of wood on the ground, and a swiftmurmur of astonishment among the ranks. The two lieutenants glared ateach other. The bucket lay on the ground empty. 

AN INDIANA CAMPAIGN

I

When the able-bodied citizens of the village formed a company andmarched away to the war, Major Tom Boldin assumed in a manner the burdenof the village cares. Everybody ran to him when they felt obliged todiscuss their affairs. The sorrows of the town were dragged before him. His little bench at the sunny side of Migglesville tavern became a sortof an open court where people came to speak resentfully of theirgrievances. He accepted his position and struggled manfully under theload. It behoved him, as a man who had seen the sky red over the quaint, low cities of Mexico, and the compact Northern bayonets gleaming on thenarrow roads. 

One warm summer day the major sat asleep on his little bench. There wasa lull in the tempest of discussion which usually enveloped him. Hiscane, by use of which he could make the most tremendous and impressivegestures, reposed beside him. His hat lay upon the bench, and his oldbald head had swung far forward until his nose actually touched thefirst button of his waistcoat. 

The sparrows wrangled desperately in the road, defying perspiration. Once a team went jangling and creaking past, raising a yellow blur ofdust before the soft tones of the field and sky. In the long grass ofthe meadow across the road the insects chirped and clacked eternally. 

Suddenly a frouzy-headed boy appeared in the roadway, his bare feetpattering rapidly. He was extremely excited. He gave a shrill whoop ashe discovered the sleeping major and rushed toward him. He created aterrific panic among some chickens who had been scratching intently nearthe major's feet. They clamoured in an insanity of fear, and rushedhither and thither seeking a way of escape, whereas in reality all wayslay plainly open to them. 

This tumult caused the major to arouse with a sudden little jump ofamazement and apprehension. He rubbed his eyes and gazed about him. Meanwhile, some clever chicken had discovered a passage to safety, andled the flock into the garden, where they squawked in sustained alarm. 

Panting from his run and choked with terror, the little boy stoodbefore the major, struggling with a tale that was ever upon the tip ofhis tongue. 

"Major--now--major----"

The old man, roused from a delicious slumber, glared impatiently at thelittle boy. "Come, come! What's th' matter with yeh?" he demanded. "What's th' matter? Don't stand there shaking! Speak up!"

"Lots is th' matter!" the little boy shouted valiantly, with a courageborn of the importance of his tale. "My ma's chickens 'uz all stole, an'--now--he's over in th' woods!"

"Who is? Who is over in the woods? Go ahead!"

"Now--th' rebel is!"

"What?" roared the major. 

"Th' rebel!" cried the little boy, with the last of his breath. 

The major pounced from his bench in tempestuous excitement. He seizedthe little boy by the collar and gave him a great jerk. "Where? Are yehsure? Who saw 'im? How long ago? Where is he now? Did you see 'im?"

The little boy, frightened at the major's fury, began to sob. After amoment he managed to stammer: "He--now--he's in the woods. I saw 'im. Helooks uglier'n anythin'. "

The major released his hold upon the boy, and pausing for a time, indulged in a glorious dream. Then he said: "By thunder! we'll ketch th'cuss. You wait here, " he told the boy, "and don't say a word t' anybody. Do you hear?"

The boy, still weeping, nodded, and the major hurriedly entered theinn. He took down from its pegs an awkward smooth-bore rifle andcarefully examined the enormous percussion cap that was fitted over thenipple. Mistrusting the cap, he removed it and replaced it with a newone. He scrutinised the gun keenly, as if he could judge in this mannerof the condition of the load. All his movements were deliberate anddeadly. 

When he arrived upon the porch of the tavern he beheld the yard filledwith people. Peter Witheby, sooty-faced and grinning, was in the van. Helooked at the major. "Well?" he said. 

"Well?" returned the major, bridling. 

"Well, what's 'che got?" said old Peter. 

"'Got?' Got a rebel over in th' woods!" roared the major. 

At this sentence the women and boys, who had gathered eagerly abouthim, gave vent to startled cries. The women had come from adjacenthouses, but the little boys represented the entire village. They hadmiraculously heard the first whisper of rumour, and they performedwonders in getting to the spot. They clustered around the importantfigure of the major and gazed in silent awe. The women, however, burstforth. At the word "rebel, " which represented to them all terriblethings, they deluged the major with questions which were obviouslyunanswerable. 

He shook them off with violent impatience. Meanwhile Peter Witheby wastrying to force exasperating interrogations through the tumult to themajor's ears. "What? No! Yes! How d' I know?" the maddened veteransnarled as he struggled with his friends. "No! Yes! What? How in thunderd' I know?" Upon the steps of the tavern the landlady sat, weepingforlornly. 

At last the major burst through the crowd, and went to the roadway. There, as they all streamed after him, he turned and faced them. "Now, look a' here, I don't know any more about this than you do, " he toldthem forcibly. "All that I know is that there's a rebel over in Smith'swoods, an' all I know is that I'm agoin' after 'im. "

"But hol' on a minnet, " said old Peter. "How do yeh know he's a rebel?"

"I know he is!" cried the major. "Don't yeh think I know what a rebelis?"

Then, with a gesture of disdain at the babbling crowd, he marcheddeterminedly away, his rifle held in the hollow of his arm. At thisheroic moment a new clamour arose, half admiration, half dismay. OldPeter hobbled after the major, continually repeating, "Hol' on a minnet. "

The little boy who had given the alarm was the centre of a throng oflads who gazed with envy and awe, discovering in him a new quality. Heheld forth to them eloquently. The women stared after the figure of themajor and old Peter, his pursuer. Jerozel Bronson, a half-witted lad whocomprehended nothing save an occasional genial word, leaned against thefence and grinned like a skull. The major and the pursuer passed out ofview around the turn in the road where the great maples lazily shook thedust that lay on their leaves. 

For a moment the little group of women listened intently as if theyexpected to hear a sudden shot and cries from the distance. They lookedat each other, their lips a little way apart. The trees sighed softly inthe heat of the summer sun. The insects in the meadow continued theirmonotonous humming, and, somewhere, a hen had been stricken with fearand was cackling loudly. 

Finally, Mrs. Goodwin said: "Well, I'm goin' up to th' turn a' th'road, anyhow. " Mrs. Willets and Mrs. Joe Peterson, her particularfriends, cried out at this temerity, but she said: "Well, I'm goin', anyhow. "

She called Bronson. "Come on, Jerozel. You're a man, an' if he shouldchase us, why, you mus' pitch inteh 'im. Hey?"

Bronson always obeyed everybody. He grinned an assent, and went withher down the road. 

A little boy attempted to follow them, but a shrill scream from hismother made him halt. 

The remaining women stood motionless, their eyes fixed upon Mrs. Goodwin and Jerozel. Then at last one gave a laugh of triumph at herconquest of caution and fear, and cried: "Well, I'm goin' too!"

Another instantly said, "So am I. " There began a general movement. Someof the little boys had already ventured a hundred feet away from themain body, and at this unanimous advance they spread out ahead in littlegroups. Some recounted terrible stories of rebel ferocity. Their eyeswere large with excitement. The whole thing, with its possible dangers, had for them a delicious element. Johnnie Peterson, who could whip anyboy present, explained what he would do in case the enemy should happento pounce out at him. 

The familiar scene suddenly assumed a new aspect. The field of corn, which met the road upon the left, was no longer a mere field of corn. Itwas a darkly mystic place whose recesses could contain all manner ofdangers. The long green leaves, waving in the breeze, rustled from thepassing of men. In the song of the insects there were now omens, threats. 

There was a warning in the enamel blue of the sky, in the stretch ofyellow road, in the very atmosphere. Above the tops of the corn loomedthe distant foliage of Smith's woods, curtaining the silent action of atragedy whose horrors they imagined. 

The women and the little boys came to a halt, overwhelmed by theimpressiveness of the landscape. They waited silently. 

Mrs. Goodwin suddenly said: "I'm goin' back. " The others, who allwished to return, cried at once disdainfully:

"Well, go back, if yeh want to!"

A cricket at the roadside exploded suddenly in his shrill song, and awoman, who had been standing near, shrieked in startled terror. Anelectric movement went through the group of women. They jumped and gavevent to sudden screams. With the fears still upon their agitated faces, they turned to berate the one who had shrieked. "My! what a goose youare, Sallie! Why, it took my breath away. Goodness sakes, don't hollerlike that again!"

II

"Hol' on a minnet!" Peter Witheby was crying to the major, as thelatter, full of the importance and dignity of his position as protectorof Migglesville, paced forward swiftly. The veteran already felt uponhis brow a wreath formed of the flowers of gratitude, and as he strodehe was absorbed in planning a calm and self-contained manner of wearingit. "Hol' on a minnet!" piped old Peter in the rear. 

At last the major, aroused from his dream of triumph, turned aboutwrathfully. "Well, what?"

"Now, look a' here, " said Peter. "What 'che goin' t' do?"

The major, with a gesture of supreme exasperation, wheeled again andwent on. When he arrived at the cornfield he halted and waited forPeter. He had suddenly felt that indefinable menace in the landscape. 

"Well?" demanded Peter, panting. 

The major's eyes wavered a trifle. "Well, " he repeated--"well, I'mgoin' in there an' bring out that there rebel. "

They both paused and studied the gently swaying masses of corn, andbehind them the looming woods, sinister with possible secrets. 

"Well, " said old Peter. 

The major moved uneasily and put his hand to his brow. Peter waited inobvious expectation. 

The major crossed through the grass at the roadside and climbed thefence. He put both legs over the topmost rail and then sat perchedthere, facing the woods. Once he turned his head and asked, "What?"

"I hain't said anythin', " answered Peter. 

The major clambered down from the fence and went slowly into the corn, his gun held in readiness. Peter stood in the road. 

Presently the major returned and said, in a cautious whisper: "If yehhear anythin', you come a-runnin', will yeh?"

"Well, I hain't got no gun nor nuthin', " said Peter, in the same lowtone; "what good 'ud I do?"

"Well, yeh might come along with me an' watch, " said the major. "Foureyes is better'n two. "

"If I had a gun--" began Peter. 

"Oh, yeh don't need no gun, " interrupted the major, waving his hand:"All I'm afraid of is that I won't find 'im. My eyes ain't so good asthey was. "

"Well--"

"Come along, " whispered the major. "Yeh hain't afraid, are yeh?"

"No, but--"

"Well, come along, then. What's th' matter with yeh?"

Peter climbed the fence. He paused on the top rail and took a prolongedstare at the inscrutable woods. When he joined the major in thecornfield he said, with a touch of anger:

"Well, you got the gun. Remember that. If he comes for me, I hain't gota blame thing!"

"Shucks!" answered the major. "He ain't agoin' t' come for yeh. "

The two then began a wary journey through the corn. One by one the longaisles between the rows appeared. As they glanced along each of them itseemed as if some gruesome thing had just previously vacated it. OldPeter halted once and whispered: "Say, look a' here; supposin'--supposin'--"

"Supposin' what?" demanded the major. 

"Supposin'--" said Peter. "Well, remember you got th' gun, an' I hain'tgot anythin'. "

"Thunder!" said the major. 

When they got to where the stalks were very short because of the shadecast by the trees of the wood, they halted again. The leaves were gentlyswishing in the breeze. Before them stretched the mystic green wall ofthe forest, and there seemed to be in it eyes which followed each oftheir movements. 

Peter at last said, "I don't believe there's anybody in there. "

"Yes, there is, too, " said the major. "I'll bet anythin' he's in there. "

"How d' yeh know?" asked Peter. "I'll bet he ain't within a mile o'here. "

The major suddenly ejaculated, "Listen!"

They bent forward, scarce breathing, their mouths agape, their eyesglinting. Finally, the major turned his head. "Did yeh hear that?" hesaid hoarsely. 

"No, " said Peter in a low voice. "What was it?"

The major listened for a moment. Then he turned again. "I thought Iheerd somebody holler!" he explained cautiously. 

They both bent forward and listened once more. Peter, in the intentnessof his attitude, lost his balance, and was obliged to lift his foothastily and with noise. "S-s-sh!" hissed the major. 

After a minute Peter spoke quite loudly: "Oh, shucks! I don't believeyeh heerd anythin'. "

The major made a frantic downward gesture with his hand. "Shet up, willyeh!" he said in an angry undertone. 

Peter became silent for a moment, but presently he said again: "Oh, yehdidn't hear anythin'. "

The major turned to glare at his companion in despair and wrath. 

"What's th' matter with yeh? Can't yeh shet up?"

"Oh, this here ain't no use. If you're goin' in after 'im, why don'tyeh go in after 'im?"

"Well, gimme time, can't yeh?" said the major in a growl. And, as if toadd more to this reproach, he climbed the fence that compassed thewoods, looking resentfully back at his companion. 

"Well, " said Peter, when the major paused. 

The major stepped down upon the thick carpet of brown leaves thatstretched under the trees. He turned then to whisper: "You wait here, will yeh?" His face was red with determination. 

"Well, hol' on a minnet!" said Peter. "You--I--we'd better--"

"No, " said the major. "You wait here. "

He went stealthily into the thickets. Peter watched him until he grewto be a vague, slow-moving shadow. From time to time he could hear theleaves crackle and twigs snap under the major's awkward tread. Peter, intent, breathless, waited for the peal of sudden tragedy. Finally, thewoods grew silent in a solemn and impressive hush that caused Peter tofeel the thumping of his heart. He began to look about him to make surethat nothing should spring upon him from the sombre shadows. Hescrutinised this cool gloom before him, and at times he thought he couldperceive the moving of swift silent shapes. He concluded that he hadbetter go back and try to muster some assistance to the major. 

As Peter came through the corn, the women in the road caught sight ofthe glittering figure and screamed. Many of them began to run. Thelittle boys, with all their valour, scurried away in clouds. Mrs. JoePeterson, however, cast a glance over her shoulders as she, with herskirts gathered up, was running as best she could. She instantly stoppedand, in tones of deepest scorn, called out to the others, "Why, it'son'y Pete Witheby!" They came faltering back then, those who had beennaturally swiftest in the race avoiding the eyes of those whose limbshad enabled them to flee a short distance. 

Peter came rapidly, appreciating the glances of vivid interest in theeyes of the women. To their lightning-like questions, which hit allsides of the episode, he opposed a new tranquillity, gained from hissudden ascent in importance. He made no answer to their clamour. When hehad reached the top of the fence he called out commandingly: "Here you, Johnnie, you and George, run an' git my gun! It's hangin' on th' pegsover th' bench in th' shop. "

At this terrible sentence, a shuddering cry broke from the women. Theboys named sped down the road, accompanied by a retinue of enviouscompanions. 

Peter swung his legs over the rail and faced the woods again. Hetwisted his head once to say: "Keep still, can't yeh? Quit scufflin'aroun'!" They could see by his manner that this was a supreme moment. The group became motionless and still. Later, Peter turned to say, "S-s-sh!" to a restless boy, and the air with which he said it smotethem all with awe. 

The little boys who had gone after the gun came pattering alonghurriedly, the weapon borne in the midst of them. Each was anxious toshare in the honour. The one who had been delegated to bring it wasbullying and directing his comrades. 

Peter said, "S-s-sh!" He took the gun and poised it in readiness tosweep the cornfield. He scowled at the boys and whispered angrily: "Whydidn't yeh bring th' powder-horn an' th' thing with th' bullets in? Itold yeh t' bring 'em. I'll send somebody else next time. "

"Yeh didn't tell us!" cried the two boys shrilly. 

"S-s-sh! Quit yeh noise, " said Peter, with a violent gesture. 

However, this reproof enabled other boys to recover that peace of mindwhich they had lost when seeing their friends loaded with honours. 

The women had cautiously approached the fence, and, from time to time, whispered feverish questions; but Peter repulsed them savagely, with anair of being infinitely bothered by their interference in his intentwatch. They were forced to listen again in silence to the weird andprophetic chanting of the insects and the mystic silken rustling of thecorn. 

At last the thud of hurrying feet in the soft soil of the field came totheir ears. A dark form sped toward them. A wave of a mighty fear sweptover the group, and the screams of the women came hoarsely from theirchoked throats. Peter swung madly from his perch, and turned to use thefence as a rampart. 

But it was the major. His face was inflamed and his eyes were glaring. He clutched his rifle by the middle and swung it wildly. He was boundingat a great speed for his fat, short body. 

"It's all right! it's all right!" he began to yell some distance away. "It's all right! It's on'y ol' Milt' Jacoby!"

When he arrived at the top of the fence he paused, and mopped his brow. 

"What?" they thundered, in an agony of sudden, unreasoningdisappointment. 

Mrs. Joe Peterson, who was a distant connection of Milton Jacoby, thought to forestall any damage to her social position by saying at oncedisdainfully, "Drunk, I s'pose!"

"Yep, " said the major, still on the fence, and mopping his brow. "Drunkas a fool. Thunder! I was surprised. I--I--thought it was a rebel, sure. "

The thoughts of all these women wavered for a time. They were at a lossfor precise expression of their emotion. At last, however, they hurledthis superior sentence at the major:

"Well, yeh might have known. "

A GREY SLEEVE

I

"It looks as if it might rain this afternoon, " remarked the lieutenantof artillery. 

"So it does, " the infantry captain assented. He glanced casually at thesky. When his eyes had lowered to the green-shadowed landscape beforehim, he said fretfully: "I wish those fellows out yonder would quitpelting at us. They've been at it since noon. "

At the edge of a grove of maples, across wide fields, thereoccasionally appeared little puffs of smoke of a dull hue in this gloomof sky which expressed an impending rain. The long wave of blue andsteel in the field moved uneasily at the eternal barking of the far-awaysharpshooters, and the men, leaning upon their rifles, stared at thegrove of maples. Once a private turned to borrow some tobacco from acomrade in the rear rank, but, with his hand still stretched out, hecontinued to twist his head and glance at the distant trees. He wasafraid the enemy would shoot him at a time when he was not looking. 

Suddenly the artillery officer said: "See what's coming!"

Along the rear of the brigade of infantry a column of cavalry wassweeping at a hard gallop. A lieutenant, riding some yards to the rightof the column, bawled furiously at the four troopers just at the rear ofthe colours. They had lost distance and made a little gap, but at theshouts of the lieutenant they urged their horses forward. The bugler, careering along behind the captain of the troop, fought and tugged likea wrestler to keep his frantic animal from bolting far ahead of thecolumn. 

On the springy turf the innumerable hoofs thundered in a swift storm ofsound. In the brown faces of the troopers their eyes were set like bitsof flashing steel. 

The long line of the infantry regiments standing at ease underwent asudden movement at the rush of the passing squadron. The foot soldiersturned their heads to gaze at the torrent of horses and men. 

The yellow folds of the flag fluttered back in silken, shudderingwaves, as if it were a reluctant thing. Occasionally a giant spring of acharger would rear the firm and sturdy figure of a soldier suddenly headand shoulders above his comrades. Over the noise of the scudding hoofscould be heard the creaking of leather trappings, the jingle and clankof steel, and the tense, low-toned commands or appeals of the men totheir horses; and the horses were mad with the headlong sweep of thismovement. Powerful under jaws bent back and straightened, so that thebits were clamped as rigidly as vices upon the teeth, and glisteningnecks arched in desperate resistance to the hands at the bridles. Swinging their heads in rage at the granite laws of their lives, whichcompelled even their angers and their ardours to chosen directions andchosen faces, their flight was as a flight of harnessed demons. 

The captain's bay kept its pace at the head of the squadron with thelithe bounds of a thoroughbred, and this horse was proud as a chief atthe roaring trample of his fellows behind him. The captain's glance wascalmly upon the grove of maples whence the sharpshooters of the enemyhad been picking at the blue line. He seemed to be reflecting. Hestolidly rose and fell with the plunges of his horse in all theindifference of a deacon's figure seated plumply in church. And itoccurred to many of the watching infantry to wonder why this officercould remain imperturbable and reflective when his squadron wasthundering and swarming behind him like the rushing of a flood. 

The column swung in a sabre-curve toward a break in a fence, and dashedinto a roadway. Once a little plank bridge was encountered, and thesound of the hoofs upon it was like the long roll of many drums. An oldcaptain in the infantry turned to his first lieutenant and made aremark, which was a compound of bitter disparagement of cavalry ingeneral and soldierly admiration of this particular troop. 

Suddenly the bugle sounded, and the column halted with a joltingupheaval amid sharp, brief cries. A moment later the men had tumbledfrom their horses, and, carbines in hand, were running in a swarm towardthe grove of maples. In the road one of every four of the troopers wasstanding with braced legs, and pulling and hauling at the bridles offour frenzied horses. 

The captain was running awkwardly in his boots. He held his sabre low, so that the point often threatened to catch in the turf. His yellow hairruffled out from under his faded cap. "Go in hard now!" he roared, in avoice of hoarse fury. His face was violently red. 

The troopers threw themselves upon the grove like wolves upon a greatanimal. Along the whole front of woods there was the dry crackling ofmusketry, with bitter, swift flashes and smoke that writhed like stungphantoms. The troopers yelled shrilly and spanged bullets low into thefoliage. 

For a moment, when near the woods, the line almost halted. The menstruggled and fought for a time like swimmers encountering a powerfulcurrent. Then with a supreme effort they went on again. They dashedmadly at the grove, whose foliage from the high light of the field wasas inscrutable as a wall. 

Then suddenly each detail of the calm trees became apparent, and with afew more frantic leaps the men were in the cool gloom of the woods. There was a heavy odour as from burned paper. Wisps of grey smoke woundupward. The men halted and, grimy, perspiring, and puffing, theysearched the recesses of the woods with eager, fierce glances. Figurescould be seen flitting afar off. A dozen carbines rattled at them in anangry volley. 

During this pause the captain strode along the line, his face lit witha broad smile of contentment. "When he sends this crowd to do anything, I guess he'll find we do it pretty sharp, " he said to the grinninglieutenant. 

"Say, they didn't stand that rush a minute, did they?" said thesubaltern. Both officers were profoundly dusty in their uniforms, andtheir faces were soiled like those of two urchins. 

Out in the grass behind them were three tumbled and silent forms. 

Presently the line moved forward again. The men went from tree to treelike hunters stalking game. Some at the left of the line firedoccasionally, and those at the right gazed curiously in that direction. The men still breathed heavily from their scramble across the field. 

Of a sudden a trooper halted and said: "Hello! there's a house!" Everyone paused. The men turned to look at their leader. 

The captain stretched his neck and swung his head from side to side. "By George, it is a house!" he said. 

Through the wealth of leaves there vaguely loomed the form of a largewhite house. These troopers, brown-faced from many days of campaigning, each feature of them telling of their placid confidence and courage, were stopped abruptly by the appearance of this house. There was somesubtle suggestion--some tale of an unknown thing--which watched themfrom they knew not what part of it. 

A rail fence girded a wide lawn of tangled grass. Seven pines stoodalong a drive-way which led from two distant posts of a vanished gate. The blue-clothed troopers moved forward until they stood at the fencepeering over it. 

The captain put one hand on the top rail and seemed to be about toclimb the fence, when suddenly he hesitated, and said in a low voice:"Watson, what do you think of it?"

The lieutenant stared at the house. "Derned if I know!" he replied. 

The captain pondered. It happened that the whole company had turned agaze of profound awe and doubt upon this edifice which confronted them. The men were very silent. 

At last the captain swore and said: "We are certainly a pack of fools. Derned old deserted house halting a company of Union cavalry, and makingus gape like babies!"

"Yes, but there's something--something----" insisted the subaltern in ahalf stammer. 

"Well, if there's 'something--something' in there, I'll get it out, "said the captain. "Send Sharpe clean around to the other side with abouttwelve men, so we will sure bag your 'something--something, ' and I'lltake a few of the boys and find out what's in the d----d old thing!"

He chose the nearest eight men for his "storming party, " as thelieutenant called it. After he had waited some minutes for the others toget into position, he said "Come ahead" to his eight men, and climbedthe fence. 

The brighter light of the tangled lawn made him suddenly feeltremendously apparent, and he wondered if there could be some mysticthing in the house which was regarding this approach. His men trudgedsilently at his back. They stared at the windows and lost themselves indeep speculations as to the probability of there being, perhaps, eyesbehind the blinds--malignant eyes, piercing eyes. 

Suddenly a corporal in the party gave vent to a startled exclamation, and half threw his carbine into position. The captain turned quickly, and the corporal said: "I saw an arm move the blinds--an arm with a greysleeve!"

"Don't be a fool, Jones, now, " said the captain sharply. 

"I swear t'--" began the corporal, but the captain silenced him. 

When they arrived at the front of the house, the troopers paused, whilethe captain went softly up the front steps. He stood before the largefront door and studied it. Some crickets chirped in the long grass, andthe nearest pine could be heard in its endless sighs. One of theprivates moved uneasily, and his foot crunched the gravel. Suddenly thecaptain swore angrily and kicked the door with a loud crash. It flew open. 

II

The bright lights of the day flashed into the old house when thecaptain angrily kicked open the door. He was aware of a wide hallway, carpeted with matting and extending deep into the dwelling. There wasalso an old walnut hat-rack and a little marble-topped table with a vaseand two books upon it. Farther back was a great, venerable fireplacecontaining dreary ashes. 

But directly in front of the captain was a young girl. The flying openof the door had obviously been an utter astonishment to her, and sheremained transfixed there in the middle of the floor, staring at thecaptain with wide eyes. 

She was like a child caught at the time of a raid upon the cake. Shewavered to and fro upon her feet, and held her hands behind her. Therewere two little points of terror in her eyes, as she gazed up at theyoung captain in dusty blue, with his reddish, bronze complexion, hisyellow hair, his bright sabre held threateningly. 

These two remained motionless and silent, simply staring at each otherfor some moments. 

The captain felt his rage fade out of him and leave his mind limp. Hehad been violently angry, because this house had made him feel hesitant, wary. He did not like to be wary. He liked to feel confident, sure. Sohe had kicked the door open, and had been prepared, to march in like asoldier of wrath. 

But now he began, for one thing, to wonder if his uniform was so dustyand old in appearance. Moreover, he had a feeling that his face wascovered with a compound of dust, grime, and perspiration. He took a stepforward and said: "I didn't mean to frighten you. " But his voice wascoarse from his battle-howling. It seemed to him to have hempen fibresin it. 

The girl's breath came in little, quick gasps, and she looked at him asshe would have looked at a serpent. 

"I didn't mean to frighten you, " he said again. 

The girl, still with her hands behind her, began to back away. 

"Is there any one else in the house?" he went on, while slowlyfollowing her. "I don't wish to disturb you, but we had a fight withsome rebel skirmishers in the woods, and I thought maybe some of themmight have come in here. In fact, I was pretty sure of it. Are there anyof them here?"

The girl looked at him and said, "No!" He wondered why extremeagitation made the eyes of some women so limpid and bright. 

"Who is here besides yourself?"

By this time his pursuit had driven her to the end of the hall, and sheremained there with her back to the wall and her hands still behind her. When she answered this question, she did not look at him but down at thefloor. She cleared her voice and then said: "There is no one here. "

"No one?"

She lifted her eyes to him in that appeal that the human being mustmake even to falling trees, crashing boulders, the sea in a storm, andsaid, "No, no, there is no one here. " He could plainly see her tremble. 

Of a sudden he bethought him that she continually kept her hands behindher. As he recalled her air when first discovered, he remembered sheappeared precisely as a child detected at one of the crimes ofchildhood. Moreover, she had always backed away from him. He thought nowthat she was concealing something which was an evidence of the presenceof the enemy in the house. 

"What are you holding behind you?" he said suddenly. 

She gave a little quick moan, as if some grim hand had throttled her. 

"What are you holding behind you?"

"Oh, nothing--please. I am not holding anything behind me; indeed I'mnot. "

"Very well. Hold your hands out in front of you, then. "

"Oh, indeed, I'm not holding anything behind me. Indeed I'm not. "

"Well, " he began. Then he paused, and remained for a moment dubious. Finally, he laughed. "Well, I shall have my men search the house, anyhow. I'm sorry to trouble you, but I feel sure that there is some onehere whom we want. " He turned to the corporal, who with the other menwas gaping quietly in at the door, and said: "Jones, go through thehouse. "

As for himself, he remained planted in front of the girl, for sheevidently did not dare to move and allow him to see what she held socarefully behind her back. So she was his prisoner. 

The men rummaged around on the ground floor of the house. Sometimes thecaptain called to them, "Try that closet, " "Is there any cellar?" Butthey found no one, and at last they went trooping toward the stairswhich led to the second floor. 

But at this movement on the part of the men the girl uttered a cry--acry of such fright and appeal that the men paused. "Oh, don't go upthere! Please don't go up there!--ple-ease! There is no one there!Indeed--indeed there is not! Oh, ple-ease!"

"Go on, Jones, " said the captain calmly. 

The obedient corporal made a preliminary step, and the girl boundedtoward the stairs with another cry. 

As she passed him, the captain caught sight of that which she hadconcealed behind her back, and which she had forgotten in this suprememoment. It was a pistol. 

She ran to the first step, and standing there, faced the men, one handextended with perpendicular palm, and the other holding the pistol ather side. "Oh, please, don't go up there! Nobody is there--indeed, thereis not! P-l-e-a-s-e!" Then suddenly she sank swiftly down upon the step, and, huddling forlornly, began to weep in the agony and with theconvulsive tremors of an infant. The pistol fell from her fingers andrattled down to the floor. 

The astonished troopers looked at their astonished captain. There was ashort silence. 

Finally, the captain stooped and picked up the pistol. It was a heavyweapon of the army pattern. He ascertained that it was empty. 

He leaned toward the shaking girl, and said gently: "Will you tell mewhat you were going to do with this pistol?"

He had to repeat the question a number of times, but at last a muffledvoice said, "Nothing. "

"Nothing!" He insisted quietly upon a further answer. At the tendertones of the captain's voice, the phlegmatic corporal turned and winkedgravely at the man next to him. 

"Won't you tell me?"

The girl shook her head. 

"Please tell me!"

The silent privates were moving their feet uneasily and wondering howlong they were to wait. 

The captain said: "Please, won't you tell me?"

Then this girl's voice began in stricken tones half coherent, and amidviolent sobbing: "It was grandpa's. He--he--he said he was going toshoot anybody who came in here--he didn't care if there were thousandsof 'em. And--and I know he would, and I was afraid they'd kill him. Andso--and--so I stole away his pistol--and I was going to hide it whenyou--you--you kicked open the door. "

The men straightened up and looked at each other. The girl began toweep again. 

The captain mopped his brow. He peered down at the girl. He mopped hisbrow again. Suddenly he said: "Ah, don't cry like that. "

He moved restlessly and looked down at his boots. He mopped his browagain. 

Then he gripped the corporal by the arm and dragged him some yards backfrom the others. "Jones, " he said, in an intensely earnest voice, "willyou tell me what in the devil I am going to do?"

The corporal's countenance became illuminated with satisfaction atbeing thus requested to advise his superior officer. He adopted an airof great thought, and finally said: "Well, of course, the feller withthe grey sleeve must be upstairs, and we must get past the girl and upthere somehow. Suppose I take her by the arm and lead her--"

"What!" interrupted the captain from between his clinched teeth. As heturned away from the corporal, he said fiercely over his shoulder: "Youtouch that girl and I'll split your skull!"

III

The corporal looked after his captain with an expression of mingledamazement, grief, and philosophy. He seemed to be saying to himself thatthere unfortunately were times, after all, when one could not rely uponthe most reliable of men. When he returned to the group he found thecaptain bending over the girl and saying: "Why is it that you don't wantus to search upstairs?"

The girl's head was buried in her crossed arms. Locks of her hair hadescaped from their fastenings, and these fell upon her shoulder. 

"Won't you tell me?"

The corporal here winked again at the man next to him. 

"Because, " the girl moaned--"because--there isn't anybody up there. "

The captain at last said timidly: "Well, I'm afraid--I'm afraid we'llhave to----"

The girl sprang to her feet again, and implored him with her hands. Shelooked deep into his eyes with her glance, which was at this time likethat of the fawn when it says to the hunter, "Have mercy upon me!"

These two stood regarding each other. The captain's foot was on thebottom step, but he seemed to be shrinking. He wore an air of beingdeeply wretched and ashamed. There was a silence!

Suddenly the corporal said in a quick, low tone: "Look out, captain!"

All turned their eyes swiftly toward the head of the stairs. There hadappeared there a youth in a grey uniform. He stood looking coolly downat them. No word was said by the troopers. The girl gave vent to alittle wail of desolation, "O Harry!"

He began slowly to descend the stairs. His right arm was in a whitesling, and there were some fresh blood-stains upon the cloth. His facewas rigid and deathly pale, but his eyes flashed like lights. The girlwas again moaning in an utterly dreary fashion, as the youth came slowlydown toward the silent men in blue. 

Six steps from the bottom of the flight he halted and said: "I reckonit's me you're looking for. "

The troopers had crowded forward a trifle and, posed in lithe, nervousattitudes, were watching him like cats. The captain remained unmoved. Atthe youth's question he merely nodded his head and said, "Yes. "

The young man in grey looked down at the girl, and then, in the sameeven tone which now, however, seemed to vibrate with suppressed fury, hesaid: "And is that any reason why you should insult my sister?"

At this sentence, the girl intervened, desperately, between the youngman in grey and the officer in blue. "Oh, don't, Harry, don't! He wasgood to me! He was good to me, Harry--indeed he was!"

The youth came on in his quiet, erect fashion, until the girl couldhave touched either of the men with her hand, for the captain stillremained with his foot upon the first step. She continually repeated:"O Harry! O Harry!"

The youth in grey manoeuvred to glare into the captain's face, firstover one shoulder of the girl and then over the other. In a voice thatrang like metal, he said: "You are armed and unwounded, while I have noweapons and am wounded; but--"

The captain had stepped back and sheathed his sabre. The eyes of thesetwo men were gleaming fire, but otherwise the captain's countenance wasimperturbable. He said: "You are mistaken. You have no reason to--"

"You lie!"

All save the captain and the youth in grey started in an electricmovement. These two words crackled in the air like shattered glass. There was a breathless silence. 

The captain cleared his throat. His look at the youth contained aquality of singular and terrible ferocity, but he said in his stolidtone: "I don't suppose you mean what you say now. "

Upon his arm he had felt the pressure of some unconscious littlefingers. The girl was leaning against the wall as if she no longer knewhow to keep her balance, but those fingers--he held his arm very still. She murmured: "O Harry, don't! He was good to me--indeed he was!"

The corporal had come forward until he in a measure confronted theyouth in grey, for he saw those fingers upon the captain's arm, and heknew that sometimes very strong men were not able to move hand nor footunder such conditions. 

The youth had suddenly seemed to become weak. He breathed heavily andclung to the rail. He was glaring at the captain, and apparentlysummoning all his will power to combat his weakness. The corporaladdressed him with profound straightforwardness: "Don't you be a dernedfool!" The youth turned toward him so fiercely that the corporal threwup a knee and an elbow like a boy who expects to be cuffed. 

The girl pleaded with the captain. "You won't hurt him, will you? Hedon't know what he's saying. He's wounded, you know. Please don't mindhim!"

"I won't touch him, " said the captain, with rather extraordinaryearnestness; "don't you worry about him at all. I won't touch him!"

Then he looked at her, and the girl suddenly withdrew her fingers fromhis arm. 

The corporal contemplated the top of the stairs, and remarked withoutsurprise: "There's another of 'em coming!"

An old man was clambering down the stairs with much speed. He waved acane wildly. "Get out of my house, you thieves! Get out! I won't haveyou cross my threshold! Get out!" He mumbled and wagged his head in anold man's fury. It was plainly his intention to assault them. 

And so it occurred that a young girl became engaged in protecting astalwart captain, fully armed, and with eight grim troopers at his back, from the attack of an old man with a walking-stick!

A blush passed over the temples and brow of the captain, and he lookedparticularly savage and weary. Despite the girl's efforts, he suddenlyfaced the old man. 

"Look here, " he said distinctly, "we came in because we had beenfighting in the woods yonder, and we concluded that some of the enemywere in this house, especially when we saw a grey sleeve at the window. But this young man is wounded, and I have nothing to say to him. I willeven take it for granted that there are no others like him upstairs. Wewill go away, leaving your d---d old house just as we found it! And weare no more thieves and rascals than you are!"

The old man simply roared: "I haven't got a cow nor a pig nor a chickenon the place! Your soldiers have stolen everything they could carryaway. They have torn down half my fences for firewood. This afternoonsome of your accursed bullets even broke my window panes!"

The girl had been faltering: "Grandpa! O grandpa!"

The captain looked at the girl. She returned his glance from the shadowof the old man's shoulder. After studying her face a moment, he said:"Well, we will go now. " He strode toward the door, and his men clankeddocilely after him. 

At this time there was the sound of harsh cries and rushing footstepsfrom without. The door flew open, and a whirlwind composed of blue-coated troopers came in with a swoop. It was headed by the lieutenant. "Oh, here you are!" he cried, catching his breath. "We thought----Oh, look at the girl!"

The captain said intensely: "Shut up, you fool!"

The men settled to a halt with a clash and a bang. There could be heardthe dulled sound of many hoofs outside of the house. 

"Did you order up the horses?" inquired the captain. 

"Yes. We thought----"

"Well, then, let's get out of here, " interrupted the captain morosely. 

The men began to filter out into the open air. The youth in grey hadbeen hanging dismally to the railing of the stairway. He now wasclimbing slowly up to the second floor. The old man was addressinghimself directly to the serene corporal. 

"Not a chicken on the place!" he cried. 

"Well, I didn't take your chickens, did I?"

"No, maybe you didn't, but----"

The captain crossed the hall and stood before the girl in rather aculprit's fashion. "You are not angry at me, are you?" he asked timidly. 

"No, " she said. She hesitated a moment, and then suddenly held out herhand. "You were good to me--and I'm--much obliged. "

The captain took her hand, and then he blushed, for he found himselfunable to formulate a sentence that applied in any way to the situation. 

She did not seem to heed that hand for a time. 

He loosened his grasp presently, for he was ashamed to hold it so longwithout saying anything clever. At last, with an air of charging anintrenched brigade, he contrived to say: "I would rather do anythingthan frighten or trouble you. "

His brow was warmly perspiring. He had a sense of being hideous in hisdusty uniform and with his grimy face. 

She said, "Oh, I'm so glad it was you instead of somebody who mighthave--might have hurt brother Harry and grandpa!"

He told her, "I wouldn't have hurt em for anything!"

There was a little silence. 

"Well, good-bye!" he said at last. 

"Good-bye!"

He walked toward the door past the old man, who was scolding at thevanishing figure of the corporal. The captain looked back. She hadremained there watching him. 

At the bugle's order, the troopers standing beside their horses swungbriskly into the saddle. The lieutenant said to the first sergeant:

"Williams, did they ever meet before?"

"Hanged if I know!"

"Well, say---"

The captain saw a curtain move at one of the windows. He cantered fromhis position at the head of the column and steered his horse between twoflower-beds. 

"Well, good-bye!"

The squadron trampled slowly past. 

"Good-bye!"

They shook hands. 

He evidently had something enormously important to say to her, but itseems that he could not manage it. He struggled heroically. The baycharger, with his great mystically solemn eyes, looked around the cornerof his shoulder at the girl. 

The captain studied a pine tree. The girl inspected the grass beneaththe window. The captain said hoarsely: "I don't suppose--I don't suppose--I'll ever see you again!"

She looked at him affrightedly and shrank back from the window. Heseemed to have woefully expected a reception of this kind for hisquestion. He gave her instantly a glance of appeal. 

She said: "Why, no, I don't suppose you will. "

"Never?"

"Why, no, 'tain't possible. You--you are a--Yankee!"

"Oh, I know it, but----" Eventually he continued: "Well, some day, youknow, when there's no more fighting, we might----" He observed that shehad again withdrawn suddenly into the shadow, so he said: "Well, good-bye!"

When he held her fingers she bowed her head, and he saw a pink blushsteal over the curves of her cheek and neck. 

"Am I never going to see you again?"

She made no reply. 

"Never?" he repeated. 

After a long time, he bent over to hear a faint reply: "Sometimes--whenthere are no troops in the neighbourhood--grandpa don't mind if I--walkover as far as that old oak tree yonder--in the afternoons. "

It appeared that the captain's grip was very strong, for she uttered anexclamation and looked at her fingers as if she expected to find themmere fragments. He rode away. 

The bay horse leaped a flower-bed. They were almost to the drive, whenthe girl uttered a panic-stricken cry. 

The captain wheeled his horse violently, and upon his return journeywent straight through a flower-bed. 

The girl had clasped her hands. She beseeched him wildly with her eyes. "Oh, please, don't believe it! I never walk to the old oak tree. IndeedI don't! I never--never--never walk there. "

The bridle drooped on the bay charger's neck. The captain's figureseemed limp. With an expression of profound dejection and gloom hestared off at where the leaden sky met the dark green line of the woods. The long-impending rain began to fall with a mournful patter, drop anddrop. There was a silence. 

At last a low voice said, "Well--I might--sometimes I might--perhaps--but only once in a great while--I might walk to the old tree--in theafternoons. "

THE VETERAN

Out of the low window could be seen three hickory trees placedirregularly in a meadow that was resplendent in spring-time green. Farther away, the old, dismal belfry of the village church loomed overthe pines. A horse, meditating in the shade of one of the hickories, lazily swished his tail. The warm sunshine made an oblong of vividyellow on the floor of the grocery. 

"Could you see the whites of their eyes?" said the man, who was seatedon a soap box. 

"Nothing of the kind, " replied old Henry warmly. "Just a lot offlitting figures, and I let go at where they 'peared to be the thickest. Bang!"

"Mr. Fleming, " said the grocer--his deferential voice expressed somehowthe old man's exact social weight--"Mr. Fleming, you never wasfrightened much in them battles, was you?"

The veteran looked down and grinned. Observing his manner, the entiregroup tittered. "Well, I guess I was, " he answered finally. "Pretty wellscared, sometimes. Why, in my first battle I thought the sky was fallingdown. I thought the world was coming to an end. You bet I was scared. "

Every one laughed. Perhaps it seemed strange and rather wonderful tothem that a man should admit the thing, and in the tone of theirlaughter there was probably more admiration than if old Fleming haddeclared that he had always been a lion. Moreover, they knew that he hadranked as an orderly sergeant, and so their opinion of his heroism wasfixed. None, to be sure, knew how an orderly sergeant ranked, but thenit was understood to be somewhere just shy of a major-general's stars. So, when old Henry admitted that he had been frightened, there was alaugh. 

"The trouble was, " said the old man, "I thought they were all shootingat me. Yes, sir, I thought every man in the other army was aiming at mein particular, and only me. And it seemed so darned unreasonable, youknow. I wanted to explain to 'em what an almighty good fellow I was, because I thought then they might quit all trying to hit me. But Icouldn't explain, and they kept on being unreasonable--blim!--blam!bang! So I run!"

Two little triangles of wrinkles appeared at the corners of his eyes. Evidently he appreciated some comedy in this recital. Down near hisfeet, however, little Jim, his grandson, was visibly horror-stricken. His hands were clasped nervously, and his eyes were wide withastonishment at this terrible scandal, his most magnificent grandfathertelling such a thing. 

"That was at Chancellorsville. Of course, afterward I got kind of usedto it. A man does. Lots of men, though, seem to feel all right from thestart. I did, as soon as I 'got on to it, ' as they say now; but at firstI was pretty well flustered. Now, there was young Jim Conklin, old SiConklin's son--that used to keep the tannery--you none of you recollecthim--well, he went into it from the start just as if he was born to it. But with me it was different. I had to get used to it. "

When little Jim walked with his grandfather he was in the habit ofskipping along on the stone pavement, in front of the three stores andthe hotel of the town, and betting that he could avoid the cracks. Butupon this day he walked soberly, with his hand gripping two of hisgrandfather's fingers. Sometimes he kicked abstractedly at dandelionsthat curved over the walk. Any one could see that he was much troubled. 

"There's Sickles's colt over in the medder, Jimmie, " said the old man. "Don't you wish you owned one like him?"

"Um, " said the boy, with a strange lack of interest. He continued hisreflections. Then finally he ventured: "Grandpa--now--was that true whatyou was telling those men?"

"What?" asked the grandfather. "What was I telling them?"

"Oh, about your running. "

"Why, yes, that was true enough, Jimmie. It was my first fight, andthere was an awful lot of noise, you know. "

Jimmie seemed dazed that this idol, of its own will, should so totter. His stout boyish idealism was injured. 

Presently the grandfather said: "Sickles's colt is going for a drink. Don't you wish you owned Sickles's colt, Jimmie?"

The boy merely answered: "He ain't as nice as our'n. " He lapsed theninto another moody silence. 

 * * * * *

One of the hired men, a Swede, desired to drive to the county seat forpurposes of his own. The old man loaned a horse and an unwashed buggy. It appeared later that one of the purposes of the Swede was to get drunk. 

After quelling some boisterous frolic of the farm hands and boys in thegarret, the old man had that night gone peacefully to sleep, when he wasaroused by clamouring at the kitchen door. He grabbed his trousers, andthey waved out behind as he dashed forward. He could hear the voice ofthe Swede, screaming and blubbering. He pushed the wooden button, and, as the door flew open, the Swede, a maniac, stumbled inward, chattering, weeping, still screaming: "De barn fire! Fire! Fire! De barn fire! Fire!Fire! Fire!"

There was a swift and indescribable change in the old man. His faceceased instantly to be a face; it became a mask, a grey thing, withhorror written about the mouth and eyes. He hoarsely shouted at the footof the little rickety stairs, and immediately, it seemed, there camedown an avalanche of men. No one knew that during this time the old ladyhad been standing in her night-clothes at the bedroom door, yelling:"What's th' matter? What's th' matter? What's th' matter?"

When they dashed toward the barn it presented to their eyes its usualappearance, solemn, rather mystic in the black night. The Swede'slantern was overturned at a point some yards in front of the barn doors. It contained a wild little conflagration of its own, and even in theirexcitement some of those who ran felt a gentle secondary vibration ofthe thrifty part of their minds at sight of this overturned lantern. Under ordinary circumstances it would have been a calamity. 

But the cattle in the barn were trampling, trampling, trampling, andabove this noise could be heard a humming like the song of innumerablebees. The old man hurled aside the great doors, and a yellow flameleaped out at one corner and sped and wavered frantically up the oldgrey wall. It was glad, terrible, this single flame, like the wildbanner of deadly and triumphant foes. 

The motley crowd from the garret had come with all the pails of thefarm. They flung themselves upon the well. It was a leisurely oldmachine, long dwelling in indolence. It was in the habit of giving outwater with a sort of reluctance. The men stormed at it, cursed it; butit continued to allow the buckets to be filled only after the wheezywindlass had howled many protests at the mad-handed men. 

With his opened knife in his hand old Fleming himself had gone headlonginto the barn, where the stifling smoke swirled with the air currents, and where could be heard in its fulness the terrible chorus of theflames, laden with tones of hate and death, a hymn of wonderful ferocity. 

He flung a blanket over an old mare's head, cut the halter close to themanger, led the mare to the door, and fairly kicked her out to safety. He returned with the same blanket, and rescued one of the work horses. He took five horses out, and then came out himself, with his clothesbravely on fire. He had no whiskers, and very little hair on his head. They soused five pailfuls of water on him. His eldest son made a cleanmiss with the sixth pailful, because the old man had turned and wasrunning down the decline and around to the basement of the barn, wherewere the stanchions of the cows. Some one noticed at the time that heran very lamely, as if one of the frenzied horses had smashed his hip. 

The cows, with their heads held in the heavy stanchions, had thrownthemselves, strangled themselves, tangled themselves--done everythingwhich the ingenuity of their exuberant fear could suggest to them. 

Here, as at the well, the same thing happened to every man save one. Their hands went mad. They became incapable of everything save the powerto rush into dangerous situations. 

The old man released the cow nearest the door, and she, blind drunkwith terror, crashed into the Swede. The Swede had been running to andfro babbling. He carried an empty milk-pail, to which he clung with anunconscious, fierce enthusiasm. He shrieked like one lost as he wentunder the cow's hoofs, and the milk-pail, rolling across the floor, madea flash of silver in the gloom. 

Old Fleming took a fork, beat off the cow, and dragged the paralysedSwede to the open air. When they had rescued all the cows save one, which had so fastened herself that she could not be moved an inch, theyreturned to the front of the barn, and stood sadly, breathing like menwho had reached the final point of human effort. 

Many people had come running. Some one had even gone to the church, andnow, from the distance, rang the tocsin note of the old bell. There wasa long flare of crimson on the sky, which made remote people speculateas to the whereabouts of the fire. 

The long flames sang their drumming chorus in voices of the heaviestbass. The wind whirled clouds of smoke and cinders into the faces of thespectators. The form of the old barn was outlined in black amid thesemasses of orange-hued flames. 

And then came this Swede again, crying as one who is the weapon of thesinister fates: "De colts! De colts! You have forgot de colts!"

Old Fleming staggered. It was true: they had forgotten the two colts inthe box-stalls at the back of the barn. "Boys, " he said, "I must try toget 'em out. " They clamoured about him then, afraid for him, afraid ofwhat they should see. Then they talked wildly each to each. "Why, it'ssure death!" "He would never get out!" "Why, it's suicide for a man togo in there!" Old Fleming stared absent-mindedly at the open doors. "Thepoor little things!" he said. He rushed into the barn. 

When the roof fell in, a great funnel of smoke swarmed toward the sky, as if the old man's mighty spirit, released from its body--a littlebottle--had swelled like the genie of fable. The smoke was tinted rose-hue from the flames, and perhaps the unutterable midnights of theuniverse will have no power to daunt the colour of this soul.