But that day John fled from the death-trap almost mad with fear. Rushing farther into the woods, he came upon General Lyon and his staff. The plumed hats of the bodyguard told the boy that the sandy-haired man before him was in command, though the man's face was bloody from a wound in his head, and though his clothes were stained with blood and he was hatless. He sat upright on his horse, and as the boy turned, he heard the voices of Captain Ward and his soldiers, begging to be sent into the fight. It was a clamour fierce and piteous, and the general had turned his head to the Kansans, when something at the left startled him. There was no firing, and a column of soldiers was approaching. Doubt paralyzed the group around Lyon for a moment. The men wore gray blouses strangely like those the Iowans wore. The men might be Sigel's men, coming back from their artillery duel. The general plainly was puzzled. He rode out from the bodyguard a few paces. The boy was staring at him, when the bodyguard with their gay plumed hats came up, and he saw wrath flash into the general's face as he recognized the enemy. "Shoot them--shoot them--" he shouted. But the gray line vomited its smoke first, and the boy felt his foot afire. The general dropped from his horse, and as the boy looked down, he saw a red blot coming out on his instep. In the same instant he saw Captain Ward rush to the falling general, and saw the bodyguard gather about him, and then the blackness came over the child and he fell. He did not see them bear General Lyon's body into the brush, nor hear Ward moan his sorrow. But when Ward returned from the thicket, he saw the child lying limp on the grass. As Ward ran toward the hospital van carrying the limp little body, he could see that a ball had pierced the boy's foot. Also he saw the men in retreat who had shot Lyon, and all over the field the firing had ceased. As he hurried through the underbrush, Ward ran into Bob Hendricks hiding in the thicket. Ward took the child's hand and he began to sob: "I saw Elmer go up that hill, Captain; I saw him go up with the horses and he ain't come back." But Ward did not understand him, and hurried the little fellow along with John to the surgeon. Then Ward left them, and when John Barclay opened his eyes, Bob Hendricks was sitting beside him. A great lint bandage was about John's foot, and they were in a wagon jolting over a rutty road. He did not speak for a long time, and then he asked, "Did we whip 'em?" And Bob nodded and said, "Cap says so!" The children clasped hands and talked of many things that passed from the boy's mind. But his mind recorded that the next day in the hospital Martin Culpepper said, "Bob can't come to-day, Johnnie; you know he's tendin' Elmer's funeral." The boy must have opened his eyes, for the man said, "Why, Johnnie, I thought you knew; yes; they found him dead that night--right under the reb--under the enemies' guns on the brink of the hill."