ds and the Front Royal road. He now could
see the Federal line of battle, drawn on both sides of the pike, but
preponderantly to the westward. They were there, horse and foot and
bellowing artillery, and they did not look panic-stricken. Their flags
were flying, their muskets gleaming. They had always vastly more and
vastly better bands than had the grey, and they used them more
frequently. They were playing now--a brisk and stirring air, sinking and
swelling as the guns boomed or were silent. The mist was up, the sun
shone bright. "Gawd!" thought Steve. "I'd better be there than here! We
ain't a-goin' to win, anyhow. They've got more cannon, and a bigger
country, and all the ships, and pockets full of money. Once't I had a
chance to move North--"

He had landed in a fringe of small trees by a little runlet, and now,
under this cover, he moved irresolutely forward. "Ef I walked toward
them with my hands up, they surely wouldn't shoot. What's that?--Gawd!
Look at Old Jack a-comin'! Reckon I'll stay--Told them once't on Thunder
Run I wouldn't move North for nothing! _Yaaaihhhh! Yaaaaihhh_--"

_Yaaihhhhh! Yaaihhhhh! Yaaaihh! Yaaaaaaaihhhh!_ Ten thousand grey
soldiers with the sun on their bayonets--

* * * * *

There came by a riderless horse, gentle enough, unfrightened, wanting
only to drink at the little stream. Steve caught him without
difficulty, climbed into the saddle and followed the army. The army was
a clanging, shouting, triumphant thing to follow--to follow into the
Winchester streets, into a town that was mad with joy. A routed army was
before it, pouring down Loudoun Street, pouring down Main Street,
pouring down every street and lane, pouring out of the northern end of
the town, out upon the Martinsburg pike, upon the road to the frontier,
the road to the Potomac. There was yet firing in narrow side streets, a
sweeping out of single and desperate knots of blue. Church bells were
pealing, women young and old were out of doors, weeping for pure joy,
laughing for the same, praising, blessing, greeting sons, husbands,
lovers, brothers, friends, deliverers. A bearded figure, leaf brown, on
a sorrel nag, answered with a gravity strangely enough not without
sweetness the acclamation with which he was showered, sent an aide to
hasten the batteries, sent another with an order to General George H.
Steuart commanding cavalry, jerked his hand into the air and swept on in
pursuit out by