"Look!" hissed Dyke,--"a spy!"--as the figure of a man climbed from a ditch where he had been concealed as he ran, and darted towards the rebel camp. "We'll miss them yet!"--firing after him with an oath. The pistol missed,--flashed in the pan. "Wet!"--dashing it on the ground. "Fire, Gaunt!--quick!" The man looked round; he ran lamely,--a thick, burly figure, a haggard face. Gaunt's pistol fell. Dode's father! the only man that loved him! "Damn you!" shouted Dyke, "are you going to shirk?" Why, this _was_ the work! Gaunt pulled the trigger; there was a blinding flash. The old man stood a moment on the ridge, the wind blowing his gray hair back, then staggered, and fell,--that was all. The column, sweeping up on the double-quick, carried the young disciple of Jesus with them. The jaws of the Gap were before them,--the enemy. What difference, if he turned pale, and cried out weakly, looking back at the man that he had killed? For a moment the silence was unbroken. The winter's dawn, with pink blushes, and restless soft sighs, was yet wakening into day. The next, the air was shattered with the thunder of the guns among the hills, shouts, curses, death-cries. The speech which this day was to utter in the years was the old vexed cry,--"How long, O Lord? how long?" A fight, short, but desperate. Where-ever it was hottest, the men crowded after one leader, a small man, with a mild, quiet face,--Douglas Palmer. Fighting with a purpose: high,--the highest, he thought: to uphold his Government. His blows fell heavy and sure. You know the end of the story. The Federal victory was complete. The Rebel forces were carried off prisoners to Romney. How many, on either side, were lost, as in every battle of our civil war, no one can tell: it is better, perhaps, we do not know. The Federal column did not return in an unbroken mass as they went. There were wounded and dying among them; some vacant places. Besides, they had work to do on their road back: the Rebels had been sheltered in the farmers' houses near; the "nest must be cleaned out": every homestead but two from Romney to the Gap was laid in ashes. It was not a pleasant sight for the officers to see women and children flying half-naked and homeless through the snow, nor did they think it would strengthen the Union sentiment; but what could they do? As great atrocities as these were committed by the Rebels. The war, as Palmer said, was a savage necessity.