he would not look at the
running water, but when he looked at the slopes he was expected
presently to climb he saw that there was fighting there and that the
nightmare attended! Steve closed his eyes. "O Gawd, take care of me--"

Later on, when the ridge was won he found himself, still in the company
of the nightmare, cowering close to the lock of a rail fence that
zigzagged along the crest. How he got there he really did not know. He
had his musket still clutched--his mountaineer's instinct served for
that. Presently he made the discovery that he had been firing, had fired
thrice, it appeared from his cartridge box. He remembered neither firing
nor loading, though he had some faint recollection of having been upon
his knees behind a low stone wall--he saw it now at right angles with
the rail fence. A clover field he remembered because some one had said
something about four-leaved clovers, and then a shell had come by and
the clover turned red. Seized with panic he bit a cartridge and loaded.
The air was rocking; moreover, with the heavier waves came a sharp
_zzzz-ip! zzzzzz-ip!_ Heaven and earth blurred together, blended by the
giant brush of eddying smoke. Steve tasted powder, smelled powder. On
the other side of the fence, from a battery lower down the slope to the
guns beyond him two men were running--running very swiftly, with bent
heads. They ran like people in a pelting rain, and between them they
carried a large bag or bundle, slung in an oilcloth. They were tall and
hardy men, and they moved with a curious air of determination. "Carrying
powder! Gawd! before I'd be sech a fool--" A shell came, and
burst--burst between the two men. There was an explosion, ear-splitting,
heart-rending. A part of the fence was wrecked; a small cedar tree torn
into kindling. Steve put down his musket, laid his forehead upon the
rail before him, and vomited.

The guns were but a few yards above him, planted just below the crest,
their muzzles projecting over. Steve recognized Rockbridge. He must, he
thought, have been running away, not knowing where he was going, and
infernally managed to get up here. The nightmare abode with him. His
joints felt like water, his heart was straightened, stretched, and
corded in his bosom like a man upon the rack. He pressed close into the
angle of the fence, made himself of as little compass as his long and
gangling limbs allowed, and held himself still as an opossum feigning
death. Only his watery