tion.
Again the cannon thundered across the valley, again the machine-guns
joined in the tumult, while the infantry fire surged to and fro.

You may be able to urge an exhausted or famished troop on to a final
assault, you may even gain the victory with their last vestige of
energy, their last bit of strength, provided you can inspire them with
sufficient enthusiasm; but it is impossible to save a lost cause with
troops who have been hunted up and down for twenty-four hours and whose
nerves are positively blunt from the strain of the prolonged battle.

The exhausted regiments went back, back into the basin of the Blue
Mountains, into a flaming pit that hid death and destruction in its
midst. The headquarters, too, had to be moved back. General MacArthur
lost his way in the darkness, and, accompanied by a single officer, rode
across the bloody battle-field right through the enemy's line of fire.

He soon ran across a cavalry brigade belonging to Longworth's division,
and at once placed himself at its head and led an onslaught on a
Japanese regiment. A wild _melee_ ensued in the darkness, and, although
only a few hundred riders remained in their saddles, the attack had
cleared the atmosphere and the wavering battalions gained new courage.

General MacArthur ordered a retreat by way of Union, employing Wood's
division, which was slowly making its way back to Hilgard, to cover the
retreat. Regiment after regiment threatened to become disbanded, and
only the determined action of the officers prevented a general rout. The
decimated regiments of Wood's division stood like a wall before the
ruins of Hilgard; they formed a rock against which the enemy's troops
dashed themselves in vain. In this way Fowler's and Longworth's
divisions succeeded in making a fair retreat, especially as the enemy's
strength was beginning to become exhausted. The uncertainty of a night
attack, when the fighting is done with bandaged eyes, as it were, and it
becomes impossible to control the effect of one's own firing,
contributed also towards weakening the Japanese attacks. The thin lines
of hostile troops from Baker City and from the north, which had
threatened to surround our army, were pierced by the determined assaults
of the American regiments; and although our entire transport service and
numerous guns remained in possession of the enemy, our retreat by way of
Union was open.

At dawn on the seventeenth of August the remains of Wood's divisi