dash of Morgan, the electric
personality of Forrest, but no one could serve in his headquarters
company without being well aware of the steadfast determination, the
regard for his men, the bulldog courage which made him Forrest's
dependable, rock-hard supporter in the most dangerous action.

"They said pretty bad. General Chalmers, he took command."

"Christmas present," Kirby repeated bleakly. "Looks like Christmas ain't
gonna be so merry this year."

They had lost Buford and they were forced back again, disputing
savagely--hand to hand, revolver against saber, carbine against
carbine--to Pulaski. Seven miles, and the enemy made to pay dearly for
every foot of that distance.

It was Christmas morning, and Drew chewed on a crust of corn pone, old
and rock-hard. He wondered dully if his capacity to hold more than a few
crumbs had completely vanished. And he allowed himself for one or two
long moments to remember Christmas at Oak Hill--where he had managed to
spend a more festive day than at Red Springs in the chilly neighborhood
of his grandfather. Christmas at Oak Hill ... Sheldon, Boyd, Cousin
Merry, Cousin Jeff, too, before he died back in '59.

Drew opened his eyes and saw a fire, not the flames of brandy flickering
above a plum pudding, or the quiet, welcoming fire on a hearth, but
rather a violent burst of yellow-and-red destruction punctured by bursts
of exploding ammunition. These were the stores Forrest had ordered
destroyed because the men could transport them no further.

The word was out that they were going to make a firm stand near
Anthony's Hill, again to the south. And they had been hard at work there
to fashion a stopper which would either suck the venturesome enemy into
a bad mauling, as Forrest hoped, or else just hold him to buy more time.

There the turnpike descended sharply with a defile between two ridges,
ridges which now housed Morton's battery, ready to blast road and hollow
below. Felled timber, rails, stones, anything which could shelter a man
from lead and steel long enough for him to shoot his share back, had
been woven together, and a mounted reserve waited behind to prevent
flanking. A good stout trap--the kind Forrest had used to advantage
before and which had enough teeth in it to crush the unwary.

"Dilly, Dilly, come and be killed," Drew repeated to himself that tag
from some childhood rhyme or story as he waited at the mouth of the
gorge to play his own part in the action to