enabled me to place your riflemen where they
did the most effective work of the morning."

Captain Gordon had already despatched messengers to his two
lieutenants, instructing them to move their platoons back to the side
of the hill to the positions they had occupied before the action; and
this order was now in process of being executed. Dr. Barlow, though he
had been a fighting man at the beginning of the engagement, was now
attending to the wounded, assisted by some men he had selected from his
own company.

"I think you had better take possession of the house of this Secesh
farmer for the wounded. He would have spoiled the morning's work if he
had escaped, for he would have warned the enemy of their danger from a
superior force."

The captain approved the idea, and instructed the colonel to effect the
removal with his own force. The riflemen were also directed to remove
the dead into the forest until there was time to dispose of them. The
ground was still strewn with the dead, as they had fallen under the
destructive fire of the sharpshooters. With the exception of the
Confederate hospital, which was near the foot of the hill,--for their
own surgeon had chosen the location by the side of a flowing brook, in
the shadow of some mighty walnuts,--the hill presented the same
appearance as when the enemy came in sight of it, and had been lured on
to their defeat by the deceptive silence of the locality; for not a
sound or a moving thing betrayed the peril that surrounded them.

Life Knox and Milton had run their horses to the utmost extent of their
ability for over half a mile. When the tramp of the horses was heard,
they halted and concealed themselves at the side of the road, at a bend
of it; but they had hardly done so before the sound of the horses' feet
ceased to be heard, and it looked as though the force had halted. Life
dismounted, and climbed a tree not less than a hundred feet in height,
which enabled him to see into the low ground on the other side of a
slight elevation.

The cavalry were extended along a brook, watering their horses on both
sides of it. The trees overtopped the stream so that it was quite dark
on its banks, and the distance was so great that Life could not make
out whether the men wore the blue or the gray, especially as he had
made up his mind that the force was an enemy, and the trees half hid
them from his view. He descended from his perch, and waited on the
ground till he heard the c