n he stood on the trampled broom-sedge, he said them over with a
nervous jerk, "Wait until they come within fifty yards--and, for God's
sake, boys, shoot at the knees!"

He thought of the jolly Colonel, and laughed hysterically. Why, he had been
at that man's wedding--had kissed his bride--and now he was begging him to
shoot at people's knees!

With a cheer, the regiment broke from cover and swept forward toward the
summit of the hill. Dan's foot caught in a blackberry vine, and he stumbled
blindly. As he regained himself a shell ripped up the ground before him,
flinging the warm clods of earth into his face. A "worm" fence at a little
distance scattered beneath the fire, and as he looked up he saw the long
rails flying across the field. For an instant he hesitated; then something
that was like a nervous spasm shook his heart, and he was no more afraid.
Over the blackberries and the broom-sedge, on he went toward the swirls of
golden dust that swept upward from the bright green slope. If this was a
battle, what was the old engraving? Where were the prancing horses and the
uplifted swords?

Something whistled in his ears and the air was filled with sharp sounds
that set his teeth on edge. A man went down beside him and clutched at his
boots as he ran past; but the smell of the battle--a smell of oil and
smoke, of blood and sweat--was in his nostrils, and he could have kicked
the stiff hands grasping at his feet. The hot old blood of his fathers had
stirred again and the dead had rallied to the call of their descendant. He
was not afraid, for he had been here long before.

Behind him, and beside him, row after row of gray men leaped from the
shadow--the very hill seemed rising to his support--and it was almost
gayly, as the dead fighters lived again, that he went straight onward over
the sunny field. He saw the golden dust float nearer up the slope, saw the
brave flags unfurling in the breeze--saw, at last, man after man emerge
from the yellow cloud. As he bent to fire, the fury of the game swept over
him and aroused the sleeping brute within him. All the primeval instincts,
throttled by the restraint of centuries--the instincts of bloodguiltiness,
of hot pursuit, of the fierce exhilaration of the chase, of the death
grapple with a resisting foe--these awoke suddenly to life and turned the
battle scarlet to his eyes.

* * * * *

Two hours later, when the heavy clouds were smothering the