With a wild bound of fear and pain the horse had cleared the roadside ditch and had struck off at a bounding gallop across the field. Jimmie, almost unseated by that first leap, grabbed the pommel with one hand, while with the other he sawed at the reins. He might as readily have pulled against an artillery tug-of-war team. The horse merely lunged his long neck forward a little, caught the bit between his teeth, and sped on, frantic with fear. With high-pitched voice, and futile, brave little hand the boy sought in vain to check or guide the mad, pounding flight. The horse, which the regimental farrier had that morning vouched for to Dad as “a little rough yet, but as gentle as a kitten,” was an old and incurable offender in the vice of running away. As a matter of fact it was for this grievous fault that his civilian master had recently sold him cheap to a cavalry contractor. Dad after a first glance saw that the boy was not frightened and that he was likely to keep his seat far more easily at a sweeping run than at a bone-shaking trot. Unless the horse should buck, shy, or catch his foot in some hole in the field, the rider was safe enough. On the bare chance of one of the casualties Dad put his own horse at the ditch and galloped down the field in pursuit. But it was more in amusement than in fear that he gave chase. Well-mounted though he was, he was too far behind, and the runaway was going at too furious a pace for Dad to hope to overhaul Jimmie for some time. So he merely settled down to an enlivening gallop, with the hope that the boy’s horse would soon run himself out. For two miles or more they continued this; Dad gaining little if at all. The runaway’s panic fear and the light weight of his rider helped him maintain his great pace. Dad began to worry. They were almost abreast of Frederick by this time, and a full half-mile to south of the town. Beyond, somewhere in that tumble of light green valleys and dark green hills was the rear guard of the Confederate army. Perhaps only a few miles away might lurk a belated troop of camp-followers or even a company of bushwhackers. To the Confederate army, where boys of fifteen were daily enlisting as regular soldiers, a lad of Jimmie’s age in a Federal uniform would readily pass as an enlisted man and, as such, if captured, would be liable to confinement in one of the Southern war-prisons--a possible fate which turned Dad sick with dread for his adored grandson. He loosed his rein and for the first time touched spur to his sorrel. The mettled horse, unbreathed by the gallop, responded with the readiness of a machine. The gallop changed to a run. The stubble field over which they were passing became a yellowish blur under the flying feet. Little by little, steadily, but ever so slowly, the gap between the blooded sorrel and the coarser-grained runaway began to close. By the end of another mile there was a scant hundred yards between them.