osed in a mass and followed at terrific speed. The
crowd behind seemed to grow silent. We heard the patter-patter of barefoot
horses ascending the long, low hill. One rider on a sorrel horse fell
behind. He drew his horse to one side, and sitting over with one foot in
the long stirrup, plied the sorrel across the flank with a big, white-felt
hat. The horse responded, and crept around to the front of the flying
mass.

The wagon had disappeared over a gentle rise of ground, and then we lost
the horsemen, too. Still we watched, and two miles across the prairie we
got a glimpse of running horses in a cloud of dust, and into another
valley they settled, and then we lost them for good.

The speaking began again and went on amid applause and tears, with
laughter set between.

I do not remember what was said, but after the speaking, as we made our
way homeward, we met Little Ramsey and the young man who rode the sorrel
horse.

They told us that they had caught the Copperhead after a ten-mile chase,
and that he was badly hurt, for the wagon had upset and the fellow was
beneath it. Ramsey asked my father to go at once to see what could be done
for him.

The man, however, was quite dead when my father reached him. There was a
purple mark around his neck: and the opinion seemed to be that he had got
tangled up in the harness or something.

* * * * *

The war-time months went dragging by, and the burden of gloom in the air
seemed to lift; for when the Chicago "Tribune" was read each evening in
the post-office it told of victories on land and sea. Yet it was a joy not
untinged with black; for in the church across from our house, funerals had
been held for farmer boys who had died in prison-pens and been buried in
Georgia trenches.

One youth there was, I remember, who had stopped to get a drink at our
pump, and squirted a mouthful of water over me because I was handy.

One night the postmaster was reading aloud the names of the killed at
Gettysburg, and he ran right on to the name of this boy. The boy's father
sat there on a nail-keg, chewing a straw. The postmaster tried to shuffle
over the name and on to the next.

"Hi! Wha--what's that you said?"

"Killed in honorable battle--Snyder, Hiram," said the postmaster with a
forced calmness.

The boy's father stood up with a jerk. Then he sat down. Then he stood up
again and staggered his way to the door and fumbled for the latch like a
blin