Another, hopping across the creek on one leg--the other bare and
wounded--and using his gun, muzzle down, as a vaulting-pole. Another,
with his arm in the sling, pointing out the way.

"Take this road," he said. "I don't know where that one goes, but I know
this one. I went up this one, and brought back a _souvenir_," he added,
cheerily, shaking a bloody arm.

And everywhere men were cautioning him to beware of the guerillas, who
were in the trees, adding horror to the scene--shooting wounded men on
litters, hospital men, doctors. Once, there was almost the horror of a
panic in the crowded road. Soldiers answered the guerilla fire from the
road; men came running back; bullets spattered around.

Ahead, the road was congested with soldiers. Beyond them was anchored
the balloon, over the Bloody Ford--drawing the Spanish fire to the
troops huddled beneath it. There was the death-trap.

And, climbing from an ambulance to mount his horse, a little, bent old
man, weak and trembling from fever, but with his gentle blue eyes
glinting fire--Basil's hero--ex-Confederate Jerry Carter.

"Give the Yanks hell, boys," he shouted.

* * * * *

It had been a slow, toilsome march up that narrow lane of death, and, so
far, Crittenden had merely been sprinkled with Mauser and shrapnel. His
regiment had begun to deploy to the left, down the bed of a stream. The