It was a strange word to Dickinson, strangely, fiercely, excitingly said. Up went his pistol—he never took aim—and when it reached the button over Jackson’s heart the quiet sweetness of the virgin poplars canopying the cool, grassy plot echoed to the thunder of his big pistol, hurling at Jackson’s heart the terrible two-ounce cone of lead. [Illustration: Scene on Stone River just back of the Clover Bottom race track. (Photo March, 1906, by E. E. Sweetland.)] Overton’s eyes were glued with fear on Jackson. He saw the dust fly out from the button over his heart. He saw Jackson half wince, his face flash with grim anger, half brace himself and throw his left arm across his breast as if to hold his heart in till he could fire. It was done naturally, easily, and Overton’s face lighted with joy as he saw Jackson calmly, coolly raise his own pistol. But Dickinson—Overton drew his own pistol and turned on him fiercely—Dickinson, pale, astounded, had involuntarily stepped back from his own line, exclaiming: “My God! Have I missed him?” “Back to your mark!” shouted Overton, “or I will shoot you in your tracks!” Dickinson flushed and stepped up to the mark, his eyes down, his smoking pistol in his hand. Jackson took deliberate aim and touched the hair trigger. Snap! It stopped on the half-cock. Never before had it done that, for a truer, better weapon no man ever had. Why this accident, this chance, one in ten thousand? We know not the unseen of life. Who sent it to give Dickinson this chance for his life—to save Jackson from a shadow that would darken all of his? Coolly, grimly Jackson recocked his pistol. Reeling with pain and loss of blood, but bracing himself to kill, he took deliberate aim, not at Dickinson’s brain, not at his heart, for his chances were small there, but at the middle of his body where he knew he could hit and where death would be sure and lingering. Dickinson collapsed at the fire and went down, pale, frantic. Jackson stood stoically, reeling, nausea-stricken, but no man knew it. The surgeon and friends rushed to Dickinson and opened his clothes. The blood poured in a rush from near his hip. The surgeon’s face lit up. That did not mean death. But look, the hole was above the center of his abdomen where the large bowel crossed the smaller ones. One glance was enough. “No chance,” he whispered to the second; “that is death.” Jackson walked off erectly—not a waver, not a limp, between his second and his surgeon. Dickinson’s eyes followed him, and the agony of his failure entered with the agony of his fate. “Are you wounded, General?” asked the surgeon. “O, he pinked me a little,” said Jackson, walking rapidly on to his horse as he felt the blood rising in his boot leg. “But don’t let them know; don’t let them know,” he added fiercely. Overton had walked back to Dickinson and now came up. He said quietly: “We can retire now, General. He will not trouble you any more.”