ved a
carbine bullet through his head and his blood colors a great space around
him.

One brave man, riding a roan horse, attempts to rally his companions.
He halts on a little knoll, wheels his horse to face us, and waves his
hat to draw his companions to him. A tall, lank fellow in the next four
to me--who goes by the nickname of "'Leven Yards"--aims his carbine at
him, and, without checking his horse's pace, fires. The heavy Sharpe's
bullet tears a gaping hole through the Rebel's heart. He drops from his
saddle, his life-blood runs down in little rills on either side of the
knoll, and his riderless horse dashes away in a panic.

At this instant comes an order for the Company to break up into fours and
press on through the forest in pursuit. My four trots off to the road at
the right. A Rebel bugler, who hag been cut off, leaps his horse into
the road in front of us. We all fire at him on the impulse of the
moment. He falls from his horse with a bullet through his back. Company
M, which has remained in column as a reserve, is now thundering up close
behind at a gallop. Its seventy-five powerful horses are spurning the
solid earth with steel-clad hoofs. The man will be ground into a
shapeless mass if left where he has fallen. We spring from our horses
and drag him into a fence corner; then remount and join in the pursuit.

This happened on the summit of Chestnut Ridge, fifteen miles from
Jonesville.

Late in the afternoon the anxious watchers at Jonesville saw a single
fugitive urging his well-nigh spent horse down the slope of the hill
toward town. In an agony of anxiety they hurried forward to meet him and
learn his news.

The first messenger who rushed into Job's presence to announce the
beginning of the series of misfortunes which were to afflict the upright
man of Uz is a type of all the cowards who, before or since then, have
been the first to speed away from the field of battle to spread the news
of disaster. He said:

"And the Sabeans fell upon them, and took them away; yea, they have
slain the servants with the edge of the sword; and I only am escaped
alone to tell thee."

So this fleeing Virginian shouted to his expectant friends:

"The boys are all cut to pieces; I'm the only one that got away."

The terrible extent of his words was belied a little later, by the
appearance on the distant summit of the hill of a considerable mob of
fugitives, flying at the utmost speed o