ld memory of disaster.

Once more they made their way through the streets of Cynthiana, where
the acrid smoke of burning caught at throats, adding to the torturous
thirst which dried a man's mouth when he tore cartridge paper with his
teeth. Drew and Croxton took sketchy orders from Captain Quirk, their
eyes red-rimmed with fatigue above their powder-blackened lips and
chins. Fan out, be eyes and ears for the column moving into the Paris
pike.

Croxton's grin had no humor in it as they turned aside into a field to
make better time away from the cluttered highway.

"Looks like the butter's spread a mite thin on the bread this time," he
commented. "But the General's sure playin' it like he has all the aces
in hand. Which way to sniff out a Yankee?"

"I'd say any point of the compass now----"

"Listen!" Sam's hand went up. "Those ain't any guns of ours."

The rumble was distant, but Drew believed Croxton was right. Through the
dark, guns were moving up. The wasps were closing in on the disturbers
of their nest, and every one of them carried a healthy stinger. He
thought of what he had seen today: too many empty cartridge boxes,
Enfield rifles still carried by men who would not, in spite of orders,
discard them for the Yankee guns with ammunition to spare. Empty guns,
worn-out men, weary horses ... and Yankee guns moving confidently up
through the night.

3

_On the Run----_

"They're comin'! Looks like the whole country's sproutin' Yankees outta
the ground."

They were, a dull dark mass at first and then an arc of one ominous
color advancing in a fast, purposeful drive, already overrunning the
pickets with only a lone shot here and there in defiance. They rode up
confidently, dismounted, and charged--to be thrown back once. But there
were too many of them, and they moved with the precision of men who knew
what was to be done and that they could do it. Confederates were trapped
before they could reach their horses; there was a wild whirling scramble
of a fight flowing backward toward the river.

Men with empty guns turned those guns into clubs, fighting to hold the
center. But the enemy had already cut them off from the Augusta road and
the bridge, and the river was at their backs. Water boiled under a lead
rain. Drew saw an opening between two Union troopers. Flattening himself
as best he could on Shawnee's back, he gave the roan the spur. What good
could be accomplished by the message he carried now-