of the troopers their eyes were set like bits
of flashing steel.

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

The yellow folds of the flag fluttered back in silken, shuddering waves
as if it were a reluctant thing. Occasionally a giant spring of a
charger would rear the firm and sturdy figure of a soldier suddenly head
and shoulders above his comrades. Over the noise of the scudding hoofs
could be heard the creaking of leather trappings, the jingle and clank
of steel, and the tense, low-toned commands or appeals of the men to
their horses. And the horses were mad with the headlong sweep of this
movement. Powerful under jaws bent back and straightened so that the
bits were clamped as rigidly as vices upon the teeth, and glistening
necks arched in desperate resistance to the hands at the bridles.
Swinging their heads in rage at the granite laws of their lives, which
compelled even their angers and their ardours to chosen directions and
chosen faces, their flight was as a flight of harnessed demons.

The captain's bay kept its pace at the head of the squadron with the
lithe bounds of a thoroughbred, and this horse was proud as a chief at
the roaring trample of his fellows behind him. The captain's glance was
calmly upon the grove of maples whence the sharpshooters of the enemy
had been picking at the blue line. He seemed to be reflecting. He
stolidly rose and fell with the plunges of his horse in all the
indifference of a deacon's figure seated plumply in church. And it
occurred to many of the watching infantry to wonder why this officer
could remain imperturbable and reflective when his squadron was
thundering and swarming behind him like the rushing of a flood.

The column swung in a sabre-curve toward a break in a fence, and dashed
into a roadway. Once a little plank bridge was encountered, and the
sound of the hoofs upon it was like the long roll of many drums. An old
captain in the infantry turned to his first lieutenant and made a remark
which was a compound of bitter disparagement of cavalry in general and
soldiery admiration of this particular troop.

Suddenly the bugle sounded, and the column halted with a jolting
upheaval amid sharp, brief cries. A moment later the men had tumbled
from their horses, and, carbines in hand, were running in a swarm toward