his apparition of a horseman in the
sky-half believing himself the chosen scribe of some new apocalypse, the
officer was overcome by the intensity of his emotions; his legs failed
him and he fell. Almost at the same instant he heard a crashing sound in
the trees--a sound that died without an echo--and all was still.

The officer rose to his feet, trembling. The familiar sensation of an
abraded shin recalled his dazed faculties. Pulling himself together,
he ran obliquely away from the cliff to a point distant from its foot;
thereabout he expected to find his man; and thereabout he naturally
failed. In the fleeting instant of his vision his imagination had been
so wrought upon by the apparent grace and ease and intention of the
marvelous performance that it did not occur to him that the line of
march of aerial cavalry is directly downward, and that he could find the
objects of his search at the very foot of the cliff. A half-hour later
he returned to camp.

This officer was a wise man; he knew better than to tell an incredible
truth. He said nothing of what he had seen. But when the commander
asked him if in his scout he had learned anything of advantage to the
expedition, he answered:

"Yes, sir; there is no road leading down into this valley from the
southward."

The commander, knowing better, smiled.

After firing his shot, Private Carter Druse reloaded his rifle and
resumed his watch. Ten minutes had hardly passed when a Federal sergeant
crept cautiously to him on hands and knees. Druse neither turned his
head nor looked at him, but lay without motion or sign of recognition.

"Did you fire?" the sergeant whispered.

"At what?"

"A horse. It was standing on yonder rock-pretty far out. You see it is
no longer there. It went over the cliff."

The man's face was white, but he showed no other sign of emotion. Having
answered, he turned away his eyes and said no more. The sergeant did not
understand.

"See here, Druse," he said, after a moment's silence, "it's no use
making a mystery. I order you to report. Was there anybody on the
horse?"

"Yes."

"Well?"

"My father."

The sergeant rose to his feet and walked away. "Good God!" he said.

Here ends No. Four of the Western Classics containing A Son of the Gods
and A Horseman in the Sky by Ambrose Bierce with an introduction by
W. C. Morrow and a photogravure frontispiece after a painting by Will
Jenkins. Of this first edition one thousand copies have