impressive dignity. The figure of the man sat the figure of the horse,
straight and soldierly, but with the repose of a Grecian god carted in
the marble which limits the suggestion of activity. The gray costume
harmonized with its aerial background; the metal of accoutrement and
caparison was softened and subdued by the shadow; the animal's skin had
no points of high light. A carbine, strikingly foreshortened, lay across
the pommel of the saddle, kept in place by the right hand grasping it at
the "grip"; the left hand, holding the bridle rein, was invisible. In
silhouette against the sky, the profile of the horse was cut with the
sharpness of a cameo; it looked across the heights of air to the
confronting cliffs beyond. The face of the rider, turned slightly away,
showed only an outline of temple and beard; he was looking downward to
the bottom of the valley. Magnified by its lift against the sky and by
the soldier's testifying sense of the formidableness of a near enemy,
the group appeared of heroic, almost colossal, size.

For an instant Druse had a strange, half-defined feeling that he had
slept to the end of the war and was looking upon a noble work of art
reared upon that commanding eminence to commemorate the deeds of an
heroic past of which he had been an inglorious part. The feeling was
dispelled by a slight movement of the group: the horse, without moving
its feet, had drawn its body slightly backward from the verge; the man
remained immobile as before. Broad awake and keenly alive to the
significance of the situation, Druse now brought the butt of his rifle
against his cheek by cautiously pushing the barrel forward through the
bushes, cocked the piece, and, glancing through the sights, covered a
vital spot of the horseman's breast. A touch upon the trigger and all
would have been well with Carter Druse. At that instant the horseman
turned his head and looked in the direction of his concealed foeman -
seemed to look into his very face, into his eyes, into his brave,