northwest, beyond the far corner of an old field and the woods at its
back, two gunshots together, then a third, with sharp, hot cries of
alarum and command, and then another and another shot, rang out and
spread wanderingly across the tender landscape.



X


THE SOLDIER'S HOUR

To regain the highroad we had turned into a northerly fork, and were in
as lovely a spot as we had seen all day. Before us and close on our
right were the dense woods of magnolia, water-oak, tupelo and a hundred
other affluent things that towered and spread or clambered and hung. On
the left lay the old field, tawny with bending sedge and teeming with
the yellow rays of the sun's last hour. This field we overlooked through
a fence-row of persimmon and wild plum. Among these bushes, half fallen
into a rain-gully, a catalpa, of belated bloom, was loaded with blossoms
and bees, and I was directing Camille's glance to it when the shots
came. Another outcry or two followed, and then a weird silence.

"Some of our boys attacked by a rabbit," I suggested, but still
hearkened.

"That was not play, Mr. Smith," Miss Harper had begun to respond, when a
voice across the sedge-field called with startling clearness,

"Hi! there goes one of them!--Halt!--Halt, you blue--" pop!--pop!--pop!