ting
in the swamps of the district; clean his gun; cut up wood; eat what he
could get, and sit by the fire and listen to the talk, as silent awake
as asleep.

One other thing distinguished him, he could handle an axe better than
any man in the company; but no one thought much of that--least of all,
Little Darby; it only brought him a little more work occasionally.

One day, in the heat of a battle which the men knew was being won,
if shooting and cheering and rapid advancing could tell anything, the
advance which had been going on with spirit was suddenly checked by a
murderous artillery fire which swept the top of a slope, along the crest
of which ran a road a little raised between two deep ditches topped by
the remains of heavy fences. The infantry, after a gallant and hopeless
charge, were ordered to lie down in the ditch behind the pike, and were
sheltered from the leaden sleet which swept the crest. Artillery was
needed to clear the field beyond, by silencing the batteries which swept
it, but no artillery could get into position for the ditches, and the
day seemed about to be lost. The only way was up the pike, and the only
break was a gate opening into the field right on top of the hill. The
gate was gone, but two huge wooden gate-posts, each a tree-trunk, still
stood and barred the way. No cannon had room to turn in between them; a
battery had tried and a pile of dead men, horses, and debris marked its
failure. A general officer galloped up with two or three of his staff to
try to start the advance again. He saw the impossibility.

"If we could get a couple of batteries into that field for three
minutes," he said, "it would do the work, but in ten minutes it will be
too late."

The company from the old county was lying behind the bank almost exactly
opposite the gate, and every word could be heard.

Where the axe came from no one knew; but a minute later a man slung
himself across the road, and the next second the sharp, steady blows of
an axe were ringing on the pike. The axeman had cut a wide cleft in the
brown wood, and the big chips were flying before his act was quite taken
in, and then a cheer went up from the line. It was no time to cheer,
however; other chips were flying than those from the cutter's axe,
and the bullets hissed by him like bees, splintering the hard post and
knocking the dust from the road about his feet; but he took no notice of
them, his axe plied as steadily as if he had been cutti