Two riders escaped and galloped headlong down the road back to their forces. The New England men arose from behind the wall, and ran across the fields to gain the shelter of a wood-lot. Before they could reach it, there was a yelling behind them and a dozen troopers were in the fields, following them desperately. _In the Stone House_ “To the house!” cried the sheriff. He led the way to an old stone house, built in Revolutionary times. The cavalrymen reined up sharply. A glance at the solid little building with window-openings as deep as embrasures, showed them that it was dangerous. They opened out, remaining carefully out of rifle shot, and surrounded the place where they could watch it from all sides. Then one rode back, swiftly. The watchers sat, easy and careless, as if they had been halted during a peaceful practice march. Half an hour passed. The immobility of the soldiers, their passionless watch, was driving the farmers frantic. More than once the old leader had to growl at a man who wanted to fire, despite the hopeless distance. If the tension in the house had lasted much longer, some of these men would have rushed out. But there came a great sound from the distance. It might have been thunder, rolling far away. It might have been a river in flood. “They’re coming!” said the sheriff’s brother. It was hard for him to speak. The defenders were all violently thirsty, and they had not had time to bring water from the well. They came. Horses, horses, horses! Bayonets, bayonets, bayonets! They came, and passed along the road, and more came on. They did not turn off to attack the house. They did not even turn their heads to look at it. This infuriated the defenders. Horses, horses, horses! Bayonets, bayonets, bayonets! If the men in the stone house could have seen other roads, they would have seen each one so filled with silent, steadily moving columns of men. A little party of men and horses turned off from the column and entered the field. Before it was within the range of the rifles, it wheeled. A shining, glossy little thing pointed at the house. It was field artillery, sleek, beautiful. The sheriff’s brother, carried away by rage, fired and fired. He emptied his magazine at the distant men. _The War Machine Rolls On_ Along the highway the column moved steadily, silently. No soldier checked his foot for so much as an instant at the sound of the shots. Bayonets, bayonets, bayonets! The machine moved on. It moved on, eyes front, while the captain commanding the cannon snapped an order. It moved on, bayonets twinkling out of sight in front, and twinkling past, and twinkling into sight from behind, while the little gun tore the April morning. The stone house spouted clouds of dust and powdering stone. It dissolved. It became a ruin that stared phantomlike through the cloud, as if it were looking with horribly expanding eyes at the gun.