a shell. Crimson light shone through
the swift-boiling smoke and made a pink reflection on part of the wall
of the well. Collins jerked out his arm and canteen with the same motion
that a man would use in withdrawing his head from a furnace.

He scrambled erect and glared and hesitated. On the ground near him lay
the old well bucket, with a length of rusty chain. He lowered it swiftly
into the well. The bucket struck the water and then, turning lazily
over, sank. When, with hand reaching tremblingly over hand, he hauled it
out, it knocked often against the walls of the well and spilled some of
its contents.

In running with a filled bucket, a man can adopt but one kind of gait.
So through this terrible field over which screamed practical angels of
death Collins ran in the manner of a farmer chased out of a dairy by a
bull.

His face went staring white with anticipation--anticipation of a blow
that would whirl him around and down. He would fall as he had seen other
men fall, the life knocked out of them so suddenly that their knees were
no more quick to touch the ground than their heads. He saw the long blue
line of the regiment, but his comrades were standing looking at him from
the edge of an impossible star. He was aware of some deep wheel ruts and
hoofprints in the sod beneath his feet.

The artillery officer who had fallen in this meadow had been making
groans in the teeth of the tempest of sound. These futile cries,
wrenched from him by his agony, were heard only by shells, bullets. When
wild-eyed Collins came running, this officer raised himself. His face
contorted and blanched from pain, he was about to utter some great
beseeching cry. But suddenly his face straightened and he called: "Say,
young man, give me a drink of water, will you?"

Collins had no room amid his emotions for surprise. He was mad from the
threats of destruction.

"I can't!" he screamed, and in his reply was a full description of his
quaking apprehension. His cap was gone and his hair was riotous. His
clothes made it appear that he had been dragged over the ground by the
heels. He ran on.

The officer's head sank down and one elbow crooked. His foot in its
brass-bound stirrup still stretched over the body of his horse and the
other leg was under the steed.

But Collins turned. He came dashing back. His face had now turned gray
and in his eyes was all terror. "Here it is! here it is!"

The officer was as a man gone in drink. His arm