ency.
When he lifts his hands against his former comrades, he is as one
already dead; that is, if he is caught. Private Wilson made the fatal
mistake of being caught. The result was inevitable.

Though Private Wilson was expecting these very words, the sound of them,
cutting the absolute silence, sent a cold contraction to his heart, and
his thick lips drew themselves over his white teeth. Doubtless, if it
had been possible, he would have turned pale; but since he was as black
as the proverbial ace of spades, this was out of the question. Private
Wilson belonged to the 19th Cavalry, which, as the initiated know, is a
negro regiment.

There was no movement in the still line of the squadron when the fatal
order was read, except a slight tremor, almost imperceptible, like the
first faint rustling of leaves in the dead quiet that precedes a storm.
Then from the right of "B" Troop there came a deep, indrawn breath, and
the first sergeant's horse sprang sideways, in amazement, against that
of the guidon. The animal was accustomed to being treated as tenderly as
an infant, and now, for no fault whatever, he had received a rough
pressure from his rider's knees, and a sharp dig from the spurs. The
first sergeant was old Jeremiah Wilson, and the prisoner, standing to
the "front and center" in the gathering dusk, and hearing his fate
pronounced, was Jeremiah's son.

Sergeant Wilson was the one man in the squadron who had hoped against
hope, and now that hope was dead. It died hard, and its death was
recorded in that contraction of the knees and dig of the spurs. The
guidon paid no attention. In his heart he believed that the sentence was
just; but his pity went out to the old soldier on his right. His eyes,
however, were fixed on Private Wilson, as were those of the rest of the
squadron. The prisoner had acquired a new status. Here was a human being
within two weeks of the solution of the greatest of all mysteries. He
was worth looking at. The condemned man saw the interest shown in him,
and, upheld by the feeling of self-importance inherent in the negro
character, and always brought to the surface by applause or other
manifestation of unusual attention, bore himself jauntily.

There was nothing of this to sustain his old father. He had participated
in executions before. For him there were no visions of walking to death
with a "firm tread," as the papers say, and "dying game" before the
admiring eyes of soldiers and natives. W