e now, but we're in good shape and on our own
soil, with those carrion between us and a gap they won't care to drop
into! I'm off for the gate--you wait here, and if Oscar fires the signal,
give the answer."

Armitage galloped off to the right and Claiborne jumped from his horse
just as the wounded animal trembled for a moment, sank to its knees and
rolled over dead.

CHAPTER XXV

THE PORT OF MISSING MEN

Fast they come, fast they come;
See how they gather!
Wide waves the eagle plume,
Blended with heather.
Cast your plaids, draw your blades,
Forward each man set!
Pibroch of Donuil Dhu
Knell for the onset!

--Sir Walter Scott.

Claiborne climbed upon a rock to get his bearings, and as he gazed off
through the wood a bullet sang close to his head and he saw a man
slipping away through the underbrush a hundred yards ahead of him. He
threw up his rifle and fired after the retreating figure, jerked the
lever spitefully and waited. In a few minutes Oscar rode alertly out of
the wood at his left.

"It was better for us a dead horse than a dead man--yes?" was the little
sergeant's comment. "We shall come back for the saddle and bridle."

"Humph! Where do you think those men are?"

"Behind some rocks near the edge of the gap. It is a poor position."

"I'm not sure of that. They'll escape across the old bridge."

"_Nein_. A sparrow would shake it down. Three men at once--they would not
need our bullets!"

Far away to the right two reports in quick succession gave news of
Armitage.

"It's the signal that he's got between them and the gate. Swing around to
the left and I will go straight to the big clearing, and meet you."

"You will have my horse--yes?" Oscar began to dismount.

"No; I do well enough this way. Forward!--the word is to keep them
between us and the gap until we can sit on them."

The mist was fast disappearing and swirling away under a sharp wind, and
the sunlight broke warmly upon the drenched world. Claiborne started
through the wet undergrowth at a dog trot. Armitage, he judged, was about
half a mile away, and to make their line complete Oscar should traverse
an equal distance. The soldier blood in Claiborne warmed at the prospect
of a definite contest. He grinned as it occurred to him that he had won
the distinction of having a horse shot under him in an open road fight,
almost within sight of the dome of the Capitol.

The brush grew thinner and the trees fewer, and he d