s an expressed
disdain in the opposition of the little group, that changed the meaning
of the cheers of the men in blue. They became yells of wrath,
directed, personal. The cries of the two parties were now in sound an
interchange of scathing insults.

They in blue showed their teeth; their eyes shone all white. They
launched themselves as at the throats of those who stood resisting.
The space between dwindled to an insignificant distance.

The youth had centered the gaze of his soul upon that other flag. Its
possession would be high pride. It would express bloody minglings,
near blows. He had a gigantic hatred for those who made great
difficulties and complications. They caused it to be as a craved
treasure of mythology, hung amid tasks and contrivances of danger.

He plunged like a mad horse at it. He was resolved it should not
escape if wild blows and darings of blows could seize it. His own
emblem, quivering and aflare, was winging toward the other. It seemed
there would shortly be an encounter of strange beaks and claws, as of
eagles.

The swirling body of blue men came to a sudden halt at close and
disastrous range and roared a swift volley. The group in gray was
split and broken by this fire, but its riddled body still fought. The
men in blue yelled again and rushed in upon it.

The youth, in his leapings, saw, as through a mist, a picture of four
or five men stretched upon the ground or writhing upon their knees with
bowed heads as if they had been stricken by bolts from the sky.
Tottering among them was the rival color bearer, whom the youth saw had
been bitten vitally by the bullets of the last formidable volley. He
perceived this man fighting a last struggle, the struggle of one whose
legs are grasped by demons. It was a ghastly battle. Over his face
was the bleach of death, but set upon it was the dark and hard lines of
desperate purpose. With this terrible grin of resolution he hugged his
precious flag to him and was stumbling and staggering in his design to
go the way that led to safety for it.

But his wounds always made it seem that his feet were retarded, held,
and he fought a grim fight, as with invisible ghouls fastened greedily
upon his limbs. Those in advance of the scampering blue men, howling
cheers, leaped at the fence. The despair of the lost was in his eyes
as he glanced back at them.

The youth's friend went over the obstruction in a tumbling heap and
sprang at the f