There was no movement in the still line of the squadron when the fatal order was read, except a slight tremor, almost imperceptible, like the first faint rustling of leaves in the dead quiet that precedes a storm. Then from the right of "B" Troop there came a deep, indrawn breath, and the first sergeant's horse sprang sideways, in amazement, against that of the guidon. The animal was accustomed to being treated as tenderly as an infant, and now, for no fault whatever, he had received a rough pressure from his rider's knees, and a sharp dig from the spurs. The first sergeant was old Jeremiah Wilson, and the prisoner, standing to the "front and center" in the gathering dusk, and hearing his fate pronounced, was Jeremiah's son. Sergeant Wilson was the one man in the squadron who had hoped against hope, and now that hope was dead. It died hard, and its death was recorded in that contraction of the knees and dig of the spurs. The guidon paid no attention. In his heart he believed that the sentence was just; but his pity went out to the old soldier on his right. His eyes, however, were fixed on Private Wilson, as were those of the rest of the squadron. The prisoner had acquired a new status. Here was a human being within two weeks of the solution of the greatest of all mysteries. He was worth looking at. The condemned man saw the interest shown in him, and, upheld by the feeling of self-importance inherent in the negro character, and always brought to the surface by applause or other manifestation of unusual attention, bore himself jauntily. There was nothing of this to sustain his old father. He had participated in executions before. For him there were no visions of walking to death with a "firm tread," as the papers say, and "dying game" before the admiring eyes of soldiers and natives. With him it was steel-ribbed facts. He could hear the bang of the trap, the snap of the rope, and the quivering creak of the scaffold. And afterward, the lonely, hopeless years. Besides, the dishonor of it. What irony to parade with thirty years of service chevrons on his sleeves, and be pointed out as the father of a man hanged for deserting to the Filipinos! The officers went to the front and center and the formation was over. Private Wilson departed to his closely guarded prison, and old Jeremiah took the troop to quarters and dismissed it. For the first time in twenty years he forgot to "open chamber and magazine," and publish the details for the next day. He wanted to be alone; away from the pitying eyes of the black men of the troop.