“Stand to your duty, you men of Wyoming! This battle was of your own seeking, and will you run away when we are more than holding our own?” Giles March and I added our voices to his, but with no avail. The hot-heads, who would not listen to us when we begged that they remain in Forty Fort, were alike heedless of our entreaties as we urged them to stand firm, and all the while the enemy was pouring in a shower of lead that the panic might be increased. [Illustration: “‘STAND FIRM ... AND THE VICTORY IS OURS.’”] Colonel Zebulon, who was the only mounted officer, rode up and down the line, regardless of the fact that he was exposing himself to the fire of all John Butler’s force, as he cried, imploringly: “Don’t leave me, my children! Stand firm one half-hour longer, and the victory is ours!” He might as well have appealed to the wind, expecting to still it; with each second of time the men grew more and more frantic with fear, until they were no longer thinking, reasoning creatures, but blind people, crazed by terror brought about through their own folly. It seemed to me as if no more than three minutes passed from the time Colonel Dennison gave the order to fall back, before we of the Minute Boys who yet remained alive were in the midst of a panic-stricken throng which carried us, despite all our efforts, past the ruins of Wintermoot’s toward the settlement from which, in our folly, we had come to measure strength with John Butler’s wolves. Behind us came a horde of yelling, exultant demons, striking with knives or tomahawks in vengeful glee, and killing more during the first five minutes of that unreasoning retreat than had been possible all the time the battle lasted. “Work over toward the swamp!” Master Morley shouted in my ear, as we were borne along against our will. “It is certain death to remain with this mob; our only show is to get back in the rear of John Butler’s line!” I did not then understand how this might be done, even though we succeeded in gaining the swamp; but I had every confidence in the man’s judgment, and, gripping Giles March’s arm because there was not time to explain to him the plan, I fought desperately against my own neighbors of the valley until we were on the western edge of the panic-stricken crowd. Then Master Morley, brushing past me and at the same time striking down a savage who, having outstripped his fellows, had aimed a blow at my head, ran at his best pace in an oblique line toward the swamp. It seemed to me as if we would never gain that fringe of deeper green which marked the edge of the morass, nor could we have done so but for the fact that the Indians were delayed in the chase by killing and scalping, and then, when it was as if my breath had gone entirely, we plunged knee-deep into the mud and water. “A little farther, lad, and then you’ll have time to breathe,” Master Morley said, as he seized me by the hand, and I was literally dragged behind the sheltering foliage.