And then suddenly he was alone. At least there was no one in sight, for the smoke was very thick. Company G all dead, or fallen, or gone back. There was a clump of brambles to his left. He dropped to the ground, crept behind it and lay still. The roar went on, the smoke rolled down over him and sometimes a bullet would clip through the brambles, but after a time the small fire dropped off little by little, though the cannon still boomed on. His legs were numb and his heart beating his sides like a drum. The smoke was blowing away down the slope. He lifted his head and peered through the brambles; there was the stone wall not five rods away, all lined along the top with grimy faces. A thousand rifles within as many yards, wanting nothing better than to dig a round hole in him. He dropped his head and closed his eyes. His thoughts were so stunned that the slowly lessening cannonade seemed like a dream, and he hardly noticed when it had ceased, and he began to hear voices, cries of wounded men and other men talking. There was a clump of trees to the right, and two or three crows in the treetops cawing familiarly. An hour or two must have passed, for the sun was down and the river mist creeping up. He lay on his back, staring blankly at the pale sky and shivering a little with the chill. A group of men came down and stood on the rocks above. They could probably see him, but a man on his back with his toes up was nothing particular there. They talked with a soft drawl. “Doggonedest clean-up I ever saw.” “They hadn't no business to come up heah, yuh know. They come some distance, now.” “Shuah! We ain't huntin' rabbits. What'd yuh suppose?” Then they went on. The mist came up white and cold and covered it all over. He could not see the wall any longer, though he could hear the voices. He turned on his face and crawled along below the brambles and rocks to where the clump of trees stood with a deep hollow below them. They were chestnut trees. Some one was sitting in the hollow with his back against the roots. During the rush Dinkey Cott fairly enjoyed himself. The sporting blood in him sang in his ears, an old song that the leopard knows, it may be, waiting in the mottled shadow, that the rider knows on the race course, the hunter in the snow--the song of a craving that only excitement satisfies. The smoke blew in his face. He went down a hollow and up the other side. Then something hot and sudden came into the middle of him and he rolled back against the roots of a great tree. “Hully gee! I'm plunked!” he grumbled disgustedly.