Irene sobbed to her father-in-law: “The dog—he was out there—” Another geyser, another thunder, one, two, three, brown bouquet after brown bouquet springing from the field. She thought: where is Dan—they missed his house that time, but the next explosion may— A man leaned soberly behind a bowlder, one human island in the noisy river, working his ramrod into the barrel of his musket; then a bursting pin-wheel blotted him from her gaze. Oh, that scream—Dan said it was a horse, it is the same scream which began this morning, and all this time it has been spearing high above the heat, on, on, higher than the larks ever flew, higher than the buzzards above Codoris’ farm.

The rebels were close, she could see them: an endless row of gray paupers who glided toward the apple trees at the seminary. They were howling like winter wind, firing at will; the guns pecked with constant, anxious reports. The last scurrying blue lines were only half a field ahead. They began to fall, one by one, sprawling and thinning as the rifles rang. This was something which had taken place in a legend, whispered by firesides to awed generations; yes, the woman knew, I heard about his before—someone told me, and now I see it happening. The populous fields were dotted with horses which kicked or reared, or stood stock-still, or lay clubbing the weeds with frantic legs.

And here appeared Cybo, officious as ever, yelping and snapping in and out among the fugitives. He could not understand what possessed them, or how they dared come into his domain and do these crazy things, and then run away before he could bark at them. He hurtled from man to man; now he was lost in a changing muddle of uniforms, now he came closer, speeding on the swarming flanks, pealing shrilly as he herded them. He loped behind one hopeless, laboring figure, a bearded man with a glistening bald spot atop his bare head, a man who could not keep up and was losing ground to the howling brown rank which breathed behind. The girl found her voice: Cybo, Cybo—she screamed endlessly, and he did not hear her. He worried beside the man’s heels, a white avenger, four-legged and wholly mad. The soldier kicked out at every other stride; the dog circled him, flew wide, and came snapping in again. The man flung up his hand; he had a revolver, he took steady aim, and fired, and then went staggering on again.