Richard Cleave, pressing very close with his skirmishers, lost sight of the blue infantry now behind an orchard-clad undulation. "Billy Maydew! come climb this tree and tell me what you see." Billy went up the roadside locust like a squirrel. "Thar air a man just tumbled off a black horse with a white star! 'T was Dave hit him, I reckon. They look powerful droopy, them cavalrymen! The big man you wouldn't let us take, he air waving his sabre and swearing--" "The infantry?" "The infantry air halted. The road air stuffed with them. One--two--three--six companies, stretched out like a black horse's tail." "Faced which way?" "That way. No! by Jiminy, they ain't! They air faced this way! They air going to make a stand!" "They have done well, and they've got a brave officer, whoever he is. The guns?" "Away ahead, but they air turning! They air making for a hilltop that hangs over the road. Thar's another man off his horse! Threw up his arm and fell, and his foot caught in the stirrup. I don't know if 't war Dave this time shot him--anyhow, 't war not Sergeant Coffin--" "Is the infantry deploying?" "They air still in column--black as flies in the road. They air tearing down the fence, so they can get into the fields." "Look behind--toward the river." Billy obediently turned upon the branch. "We air coming on in five lines--like the bean patch at home. I love them Lou-is-iana Tigers! What's that?" "What?" "An awful cloud of dust--and a trumpet out of it! The First Maryland's getting out of the way--Now the Tigers!--Oh-h-h!" He scrambled down. "By the left flank!" shouted Cleave. "Double quick. March!" The 65th, the Louisiana troops, the First Maryland, moved rapidly west of the road, leaving a space of trampled green between themselves and it. Out of the dust cloud toward the river now rose a thud of many hoofs--a body of horse coming at a trot. The sound deepened, drew nearer, changed measure. The horses were galloping, though not at full speed. They could be seen now, in two lines, under bright guidons, eating up the waves of earth, galloping toward the sunset in dust and heat and thunder. At first sight like toy figures, men and horses were now grown life-size. They threatened, in the act of passing, to become gigantic. The sun had set, but it left walls and portals of cloud tinged and rimmed with fire. The horsemen seemed some home-returning aerial race, so straight they rode into the west. The ground shook, the dust rose higher, the figures enlarged, the gallop increased. Energy at its height, of a sudden all the trumpets blew. [Illustration: bugle call music]