birds,
tinkling of cow bells coming home. It was not so; it was filled with
noise and smoke, and in the fields and fence corners lay dead and
wounded men, while in the farmhouses of the region, women drew the
blinds, gathered the children about them and sat trembling.

The blue cavalry was hard put to it. The grey infantrymen were good
marksmen, and their line was long, drawn across the road and the up and
down of the fields. Here and there, now and again, a trooper went down
to the dust, and the riderless horse, galloping to the rear, brought
small comfort to Kenly's retreating companies. At last there rode back
the major commanding the New York squadron. "We're losing too heavily,
colonel! There's a feverishness--if they're reinforced I don't know if I
can hold the men--"

Kenly debated within himself, then. "I'll make a stand at the
cross-roads yonder. Atwell shall plant the guns and give them canister.
It is nearly night--if we could hold them off one hour--"

Richard Cleave, pressing very close with his skirmishers, lost sight of
the blue infantry now behind an orchard-clad undulation. "Billy Maydew!
come climb this tree and tell me what you see."

Billy went up the roadside locust like a squirrel. "Thar air a man just
tumbled off a black horse with a white star! 'T was Dave hit him, I
reckon. They look powerful droopy, them cavalrymen! The big man you
wouldn't let us take, he air waving his sabre and swearing--"

"The infantry?"

"The infantry air halted. The road air stuffed with them.
One--two--three--six companies, stretched out like a black horse's
tail."

"Faced which way?"

"That way. No! by Jiminy, they ain't! They air faced this way! They air
going to make a stand!"

"They have done well, and they've got a brave officer, whoever he is.
The guns?"

"Away ahead, but they air turning! They air making for a hilltop that
hangs over the road. Thar's another man off his horse! Threw up his arm
and fell, and his foot caught in the stirrup. I don't know if 't war
Dave this time shot him--anyhow, 't war not Sergeant Coffin--"

"Is the infantry deploying?"

"They air still in column--black as flies in the road. They air tearing
down the fence, so they can get into the fields."

"Look behind--toward the river."

Billy obediently turned upon the branch. "We air coming on in five
lines--like the bean patch at home. I love them Lou-is-iana Tigers!
What's that?"

"What?"

"An awful cloud of dust--an