ith the deliberation of a woman smoothing her long hair. The
man next him--Jim Watts--even while he settled forward on his knees and
raised his musket, turned his head aside and spat. "Derned old fog
always gits in my throat!" A branch of elder was cutting Billy Maydew's
line of vision. He broke it off with noiseless care and raised to his
shoulder the Enfield rifle which he had acquired at Winchester. There
loomed, at thirty feet away, colossal beasts bestridden by giants.

Suddenly the mist thinned, lifted. The demon steeds and riders resolved
themselves into six formidable looking Federal troopers. From the main
street rang the Federal bugles, vehemently rallying, imperative.
Shouting, too, broke out, savage, triumphant, pointed with pistol
shots. The bugle called again, _Rally to the colours! Rally!_

"I calculate," said one of the six blue horsemen, "that the boys have
found Stonewall."

"Then they'll need us all!" swore the trooper leading. "If anybody's in
the cow-house they can wait."--_Right about face! Forward! Trot!_

The men within the elder settled down on the wet black earth. "Might as
well stay here, I suppose," said Coffin. Jim Watts began to shiver.
"It's awful damp and cold. I've got an awful pain in the pit of my
stomach." He rolled over and lay groaning. "Can't I go, sir?" asked
Billy. "I kind of feel more natural in the open."

Now Mathew Coffin had just been thinking that while this elder bush
springing from muddy earth, with a manure heap near, was damned
uncomfortable, it was better than being outside while those devils were
slashing and shooting. Perhaps they would ride away, or the army might
come over the bridge, and there would be final salvation. He had even
added a line to the letter he was writing, "An elder bush afforded me
some slight cover from which to fire--" And now Billy Maydew wanted to
go outside and be taken prisoner! Immediately he became angry again.
"You're no fonder of the open than I am!" he said, and his upper lip
twitched one side away from his white teeth.

Billy, his legs already out of the bush, looked at him with large, calm
grey eyes. "Kin I go?"

"Go where? You'll get killed."

"You wouldn't grieve if I did, would you? I kinder thought I might get
by a back street to the wagons. A cousin of mine's a wagon master and he
ain't going ter give up easy. I kinder thought I might help--"

"I'm just waiting," said Coffin, "until Jim here gets over his spasm.
Then I