The grayback, chagrined at this movement on the part of his victim, whom
he had evidently intended to intimidate by his coolness and his ferocious
words, rose from his seat in the long grass, and moved towards the tree
behind which Somers had taken refuge. Probably he was not aware that the
Yankee was armed; for he adopted none of the precautions which such a
knowledge would have imposed upon any reasonable man.

"Come out from that tree, stranger, or you shall die like a hog, with a
knife; not like a man, with a rifle-ball."

"I intend to die by neither," said Somers resolutely, as he discharged
his pistol in the direction from which the voice of the grayback came;
for he dared not take aim, lest the bullet of the ruffian should pierce
his skull.

He might as well have fired into the air, so far as any injury to his
enemy was concerned; but the report had the effect to assure the rebel
that he was armed, and thus put an end to his farther advance in that
direction. Somers listened with intense anxiety to discover the next
movement of his wily persecutor. He had only checked, not defeated him;
and an exciting game was commenced, which promised to terminate only in
the death of one of the belligerents. Somers hoped that the discharge of
his pistol would bring the sergeant down to his relief; but then to be
discovered in Federal uniform was about equivalent to being shot by his
relentless foe, burning to revenge the death of Tom Myers.

The report of pistols and muskets was so common an occurrence on the
picket-lines as to occasion nothing more than a momentary inquiry. No one
came for his relief, or his ruin, as the case might be; and he was left
to play out the exciting game by himself. The grayback, with a wholesome
regard for the pistol, had retired beyond the reach of its ball, while he
was still a long way within rifle-range of his doomed enemy. Somers dared
not look out from the tree to obtain even a single glance at the foe; for
he knew how accurate is the aim of some of these Southern woodsmen. He
had nothing to guide him but the rustling of the dried branches beneath
his tread, or the occasional snapping of a twig under his feet.

Joe Bagbone, after retreating beyond pistol-shot from the tree, had
commenced describing a circle which would bring him into a position that
commanded a view of his concealed victim. It must be confessed that Joe's
tactics were singularly deficient in range; for nothing but a surp