used to anything. Thirdly, experience soon
teaches one, in spite of proverbs, how very few bullets find their
billet. Far more unnerving is the mere suspicion of fear or even of
anxiety in the human mass around you. The Boy was beginning to wonder if
there were any dark reason for the increasing pressure, and whether they
would be allowed to move back more quickly, when the smoke in front
lifted for a moment, and he could see the plain, and the enemy's line
some two hundred yards away.

And across the plain between them, he saw Master Jackanapes galloping
alone at the top of Lollo's speed, their faces to the enemy, his golden
head at Lollo's ear.

But at this moment noise and smoke seemed to burst out on every side,
the officer shouted to him to sound retire, and between trumpeting and
bumping about on his horse, he saw and heard no more of the incidents of
his first battle.

Tony Johnson was always unlucky with horses, from the days of the
giddy-go-round onwards. On this day--of all days in the' year--his own
horse was on the sick list, and he had to ride an inferior,
ill-conditioned beast, and fell off that, at the very moment when it was
a matter of life or death to be able to ride away. The horse fell on
him, but struggled up again, and Tony managed to keep hold of it. It was
in trying to remount that he discovered, by helplessness and anguish,
that one of his legs was crushed and broken, and that no feat of which
he was master would get him into the saddle. Not able even to stand
alone, awkwardly, agonizingly unable to mount his restive horse, his
life was yet so strong within him! And on one side of him rolled the
dust and smoke-cloud of his advancing foe, and on the other, that which
covered his retreating friends.

He turned one piteous gaze after them, with a bitter twinge, not of
reproach, but of loneliness; and then, dragging himself up by the side
of his horse, he turned the other way and drew out his pistol, and
waited for the end. Whether he waited seconds or minutes he never knew,
before some one gripped him by the arm.

"Jackanapes! GOD bless you! It's my left leg. If you could get me on--"

It was like Tony's luck that his pistol went off at his horse's tail,
and made it plunge; but Jackanapes threw him across the saddle.

"Hold on anyhow, and stick your spur in. I'll lead him. Keep your head
down, they're firing high."

And Jackanapes laid his head down--to Lollo's ear.

It was when they we