He fumbled in his saddle-bag and brought out some chocolate which he fed to the baby. Then he handed it back to the mother, roaring again with laughter at her frightened face. The other riders, laughing also, waved their hands at the group and cantered on. They entered the village, swiftly examined it, riding through gardens and into alleys, assuring themselves that there was nothing there to mask danger for the troops that were behind them. They passed out of the other end and into the road leading past the plowed field with the stone wall. It was still, and very lonely. There was not a living being in sight throughout all the softly tinted land. On a tree branch that hung over the stone wall, a bluebird began to sing with all the power of its little throat. It brought a hot choking to the throat of a farmer who was lying behind the stone wall, just under the bird. Its song had welled out just as he was raising his rifle. But his gray Yankee eye sought the sights, his sinewy brown hand gripped the weapon, and he fired. _The Firing of the First Shot_ He fired, and pumped another cartridge into the breech and fired again, so quickly that his second shot had roared out before a cavalryman who had pitched forward with the first bullet through his side, had quite toppled from his saddle. All along the stone wall they fired, and pumped their magazines, and fired. They were men who had hunted deer in early autumn cover and learned to send bullets driving after them at hot speed on the jump. The big horses and the big men, broad in the open road, were easy targets. But they were not deer. They were men. More than one of the rifle bullets went wild because the marksman’s horror shook his hand. In the road lay two men, lashing in the dust. Down the road went a bleeding horse that screamed. It dragged its rider, smashing his face against the ground. In the field was a soldier, trying to balance himself on his saddle, with one hand gripping at his breast while the other reached out grotesquely, as if groping for something to which he might hold. A farmer behind the wall, unable to endure the sight of the men who were rolling in the road like animals trying to bury their agony, fired at them and made them lie still. “My God!” he said, and cried. The wounded man fell from the saddle and squatted in a queer hunched posture in the field, his head between his knees. It was the cavalryman who had fed the child. The others scattered, and charged toward the wall. Instantly, the defenders became cool. Their nerves stopped jumping. These riders, looming big, with swords out and fury in their eyes, ceased to be men. They were killers. The farmers shot as steadily as if they were aiming at deer.