For the next twenty years Ambrose Bierce was a prolific writer but, whatever the reason, no further volumes of stories from his pen were presented to the world. _Black Beetles in Amber_, a collection of satiric verse, had appeared the same year as _The Monk and the Hangman's Daughter_; then for seven years, with the exception of a republication by G. P. Putnam's Sons of _Tales of Soldiers and Civilians_ under the title, _In the Midst of Life_, no books by Bierce. In 1899 appeared _Fantastic Fables_; in 1903 _Shapes of Clay_, more satiric verse; in 1906 _The Cynic's Word Book_, a dictionary of wicked epigrams; in 1909 _Write it Right_, a blacklist of literary faults, and _The Shadow on the Dial_, a collection of essays covering, to quote from the preface of S. O. Howes, "a wide range of subjects, embracing among other things, government, dreams, writers of dialect and dogs"--Mr. Howes might have heightened his crescendo by adding "emancipated woman"; and finally--1909 to 1912--_The Collected Works of Ambrose Bierce_, containing all his work previously published in book form, save the two last mentioned, and much more besides, all collected and edited by Bierce himself. On October 2, 1913, Ambrose Bierce, having settled his business affairs, left Washington for a trip through the southern states, declaring in letters his purpose of going into Mexico and later on to South America. The fullest account of his trip and his plans is afforded by a newspaper clipping he sent his niece in a letter dated November 6, 1913; through the commonplaceness of the reportorial vocabulary shines out the vivid personality that was making its final exit: "Traveling over the same ground that he had covered with General Hazen's brigade during the Civil War, Ambrose Bierce, famed writer and noted critic, has arrived in New Orleans. Not that this city was one of the places figuring in his campaigns, for he was here after and not during the war. He has come to New Orleans in a haphazard, fancy-free way, making a trip toward Mexico. The places that he has visited on the way down have become famous in song and story--places where the greatest battles were fought, where the moon shone at night on the burial corps, and where in day the sun shone bright on polished bayonets and the smoke drifted upward from the cannon mouths. "For Mr. Bierce was at Chickamauga; he was at Shiloh; at Murfreesboro; Kenesaw Mountain, Franklin and Nashville. And then when wounded during the Atlanta campaign he was invalided home. He 'has never amounted to much since then,' he said Saturday. But his stories of the great struggle, living as deathless characterizations of the bloody episodes, stand for what he 'has amounted to since then.'