n shirt
sleeves, many of them running to the nearest officer and begging for a
gun and a place in the fight, for now the firing was loud and lively.
Down by the swift-flowing stream the tethered horses of the cavalry
plunged and neighed in excitement, and the mules in the quartermaster's
corral set up their irrepressible bray. For five minutes there was
clamor, but no confusion. Then disciplined silence reigned again, all
but the nearing volleying at the south. Presently, at rapid trot the
cavalry, some fifty strong, came clattering up the stony trail from the
stream, and with carbines advanced disappeared through the main gateway
in a cloud of dust. Two companies were told off to man the loopholes of
the stockade. Two others under the command of a senior captain faced by
the right flank, and in double-quick time danced away in the wake of the
cavalry. Eagerly the watchers climbed the wooden walls or to the tower
of the half-finished guardhouse, and, as the red light strengthened in
the east and the mountain sides became revealed, studied with their
glasses or with straining eyes the southward vista through the hills.
They saw the troop form line to the front at the gallop as it swept out
over the open ground four hundred yards away, saw its flankers scurry to
the nearest shoulder of bluff, saw their excited signals and
gesticulations, and presently a sheaf of skirmishers shot forward from
the advancing line and breasted the low ridge eight hundred yards out
from the fort, and then there came floating back the sound of ringing,
tumultuous cheer as the skirmishers reached the crest and darted
headlong at some unseen object beyond, and after them went the reserve,
cheering too. And now the sound of firing became fierce and incessant,
and messengers came galloping back to the commander of the steadily
advancing infantry, and they, too, were seen to throw forward heavy
skirmish lines and then resume the march. And then, down over the ridge
came a little knot of horsemen, made up of three men riding close
together, the outer ones supporting between them the comrade in the
center. Before they were within four hundred yards the young adjutant,
gazing through his glasses at the colonel's side, exclaimed: "It's
Dean--dead or wounded!" and one of the surgeons rushed forward to meet
the party. "He's weak, sir, almost gone from loss of blood," exclaimed
Trooper Conroy, himself bleeding from a gash along the cheek. A faint
smile drif