"Colonel Bancker, you wanted to try courage with me a little while ago: take hold of those horses, if you _dare_!" cried Frank Wallace, rushing to the edge of the stoop. The Colonel neither spoke nor stirred. "Coward!" they heard the young man cry, and the next instant--how, none of them knew--he had rushed in upon the horses' heads, spite of their lashing hoofs, had one or both by the bridles, and in an instant more both horses were flung prostrate and helpless. The imminent danger over, some of the bystanders rushed in to assist, the horses were more firmly secured, and the poor driver was dragged out, bloody and half insensible, but not seriously injured. One ready and daring hand had prevented the certain loss of one life, and the probable loss of more. Fire-crackers, pistols and other abominations had vanished from the street as if by magic; the noise over, the horses came again under command; they were raised, and horses, harness and carriage all found comparatively uninjured; the disabled driver was taken to a neighboring drug-store; one of the bystanders volunteered to drive the carriage to its destination, and took his seat on the box; the owner droned out his thanks from the inside of the carriage, in a fat, wheezy voice, mingled with the sobs of a woman in partial hysterics; and the equipage rolled away almost as suddenly as it had come--perhaps not five minutes having been consumed in the whole affair. Short as was the time occupied, the Colonel had disappeared. When the trouble was over he was no longer standing on the piazza. Frank Wallace had apparently been once beaten down, and had some soiled spots on his Melton, and a few bruises, but he had received no injury of any consequence. For what violent and even dangerous exertion he had undergone, he was unquestionably more than repaid when Aunt Martha caught him by one hand and said fervently, "God bless you!" and when Emily Owen took the other hand with a warmer and fonder pressure than she had ever given it before, and said--so low that probably not even Aunt Martha heard her: "Good--brave--generous Frank!--I won't scold you again in a twelvemonth!" All that Frank Wallace replied to both these generous outbursts, was comprised in a snap of his fingers in the direction supposed to have been taken by the Colonel, and the words: "Bah! I told you that man was a coward and wouldn't fight! If he had not pluck enough to risk the feet of those two horses, what would he do in the face of a charge of rebel cavalry!" CHAPTER IX. THE FIRST WEEK OF JULY--A CHAPTER THAT SHOULD ONLY BE READ BY THOSE WHO THINK--THE DESPAIR OF THE SEVEN DAYS BATTLES--SHOULDER-STRAPS AND STAY-AT-HOME SOLDIERS--AN INCIDENT OF THE SECOND.