In the early days of the autumn of 1862, George Todd, commanding about fifty men, prepared an ambuscade, with rifle pits, on the road leading from Kansas City to Harrisonville. The place was admirably selected, and the utmost caution and vigilance was observed in guarding it, but it came near being a slaughter-pen for the Guerrillas. One evening he succeeded in destroying a wagon train, and scattering the escort which accompanied it. But sometime afterward, Gregg, Scott, Haller and Shepherd, with a number of followers, re-occupied the rifle pits. George Shepherd was sent out on the road toward Harrisonville, south of the ambuscade. It was, perhaps, past ten o'clock at night. The rifle pits were still, and the droning hum of insects was the only sound to break the silence. Shepherd was motionless at his post down the road. Suddenly he was made conscious of the presence of an enemy, by a tall form which rose up at his right stirrup--a form which had apparently come from the shadows around him. But it was no apparition conjured up by a disordered brain. The leveling of a gun barrel at his breast, and the sharp utterance of the single word, "Surrender!" convinced George Shepherd that the form was very real. A glance satisfied him that crouching forms were all about him, and all were armed. He threw himself forward, shot the dismounted trooper in the breast as he whirled his horse around, and received a scattering volley as he dashed away to arouse his comrades in the rifle pits. The Federal forces were under command of Major Hubbard, a gallant officer of the Sixth Missouri Cavalry. He had received full information about Todd's rifle pits, had dismounted his command, and but for Shepherd's extraordinary nerve and presence of mind, he would have made a complete surprise of the Guerrilla garrison. As it was, a terrible conflict ensued, and a number of Federals were killed and eight of the Guerrillas were wounded, among them Shepherd, who received a slight flesh wound. [Illustration: Geo. W. Shepherd.] In August, 1863, Quantrell began to rally around his standard all the small, detached bands in Western Missouri for his expedition against Lawrence, Kansas. At this time Shepherd was one of his confidential advisers. In that grim council of war, summoned by the Guerrilla chieftain to consider the feasibility of engaging in such an enterprise, George Shepherd sat among the stern, relentless warriors of the border. When Fletcher Taylor returned from Lawrence, whither he had gone to obtain information concerning the military situation there, and made his report at Quantrell's headquarters to the assembled leaders, the Chief spoke: