ll see you're dealt with."

"Go to hell!" one man shouted.

"You talk about cowards," another man called. "Didn't your whole
battalion run all the way from Old Man's Creek to Dixon's Ferry, from
forty Injun bucks?"

"They don't call it Old Man's Creek no more," a raucous voice cried.
"Now it's de Marion's Run."

Raoul pulled his knife again.

"The man who said that about de Marion's Run--come up here and say it
again." He shook the knife.

"Quit wavin' that pig sticker around and get down off that barrel, de
Marion. We heard enough from you." Raoul saw a rifle pointed at him. The
blood pumping through his body suddenly went from hot to cold.

A new voice broke in.

"Lower that rifle!"

The tone was deep, easy and confident in command. It offered no
alternative. The rifle came down as quickly as if in response to a drill
sergeant's order.

A short, plump officer with thick black eyebrows came up to stand beside
Raoul's barrel. He wore a stained, broad-brimmed wool hat and a blue
Army jacket over fringed buckskin trousers. The gold stripes on his
upper arm identified him as a colonel. The saber at his side nearly
dragged on the ground. He might have been comical looking, but somehow
he wasn't. Raoul had seen the officer at command meetings and knew that
despite his mixed dress, he was Regular Army. This morning, though, he
couldn't remember his name.

Movement in the distance caught Raoul's eye. A long line of
blue-uniformed troops was marching across the prairie about a hundred
yards away, their shakoes bobbing. They came to a halt, turned and faced
the militiamen. They came to parade rest, each man with a rifle at his
side. The morning sun glittered on bayonets.

Some militiamen glanced over their shoulders at the line of Federal
soldiers, and a nervous muttering of "Bluebellies!" spread through the
crowd.

"You can get down from there now, Colonel de Marion," said the short
officer. "I'd appreciate it if you'd let me handle this."

Raoul hated to admit it to himself, but he was relieved. Crouching
slowly and carefully, so as not to make an ass of himself by falling, he
climbed down from the barrel.

"That's Zachary Taylor," Raoul heard someone in the crowd say as he
moved, now unnoticed, to stand apart on the riverbank. Raoul felt
foolish that he had forgotten Taylor's name, especially when Taylor knew
his.

Instead of standing on the barrel, Taylor hitched himself up and sat on
it, gesturing in