e midst of the pale
and excited group gathered about the lifeless forms. "Don't halt,
Truman," he ordered, as the senior captain came trotting up at the head
of the long straggling column. "Push right on and do your best to catch
those devils. I'll follow in a minute."

Without either orders or permission six or eight of Devers's men spurred
into the nearest gaps in Truman's column,--and gaps were many,--others,
half dazed, hung about their captain.

"Send a messenger to Mr. Davies and let him know what's happened,"
continued the major, after a moment of painful thought. "Bury your dead
as quick as you can, then carry out your orders. Better halt Davies
until you're ready to move ahead." Saying this, and followed by his
orderly, the battalion commander spurred away towards a bedraggled party
of some fifty dismounted men, some with horses meekly drooping at their
master's heels, several without even the shadow of a steed. Truman had
"fallen out" his utterly ineffective to form a guard for the sick and
unhorsed, Davies's two patients among them, and one of those now, in
weakness and excitement, crying like a child. A gray-haired lieutenant
was with the party striving to get this reserve into some kind of shape.
"Follow Captain Truman's trail to the river, Mr. Calvert," said the
major. "Bring your party along as well as you can. You'll find camp
somewhere up-stream. We'll have rations to meet you. I'll have to go on
now after the battalion,--what there is of it," he added to himself, his
teeth firmly set. "Was ever luck worse than this?"

And thus was Captain Devers, as senior officer, left in command with the
troops that remained clustered about the still warm and bleeding bodies
of their murdered comrades, and his first order was characteristic.
"Ride after Mr. Davies, trumpeter. Tell him to halt his party where they
are, and say I wish to see him at once." Dashing the tears away from his
eyes, little Murray said, "Yes, sir," and mounted his horse. He was
starting when Devers called him again. "You needn't tell Mr. Davies
what's happened," he said. "It would demoralize him entirely;" adding in
an undertone that was none the less audible to the men around him, "He's
worse than demoralized now."

Digging graves with hunting-knives and fingers as the only tools is
wearisome work. "What's the use of it anyhow?" reasoned the captain,
impatiently. "We simply can't dig anything but a shallow trench inside
an hour with the m