WAR
HE was a young man, not more than twenty-four or five, and he
might have sat his horse with the careless grace of his youth
had he not been so catlike and tense. His black eyes roved
everywhere, catching the movements of twigs and branches where
small birds hopped, questing ever onward through the changing
vistas of trees and brush, and returning always to the clumps
of undergrowth on either side. And as he watched, so did he
listen, though he rode on in silence, save for the boom of
heavy guns from far to the west. This had been sounding
monotonously in his ears for hours, and only its cessation
could have aroused his notice. For he had business closer to
hand. Across his saddle-bow was balanced a carbine.
So tensely was he strung, that a bunch of quail, exploding into
flight from under his horse's nose, startled him to such an
extent that automatically, instantly, he had reined in and
fetched the carbine halfway to his shoulder. He grinned
sheepishly, recovered himself, and rode on. So tense was he, so
bent upon the work he had to do, that the sweat stung his eyes
unwiped, and unheeded rolled down his nose and spattered his
saddle pommel. The band of his cavalryman's hat was
fresh-stained with sweat. The roan horse under him was likewise
wet. It was high noon of a breathless day of heat. Even the
birds and squirrels did not dare the sun, but sheltered in
shady hiding places among the trees.
Man and horse were littered with leaves and dusted with yellow
pollen, for the open was ventured no more than was compulsory.
They kept to the brush and trees, and invariably the man halted
and peered out before crossing a dry glade or naked stretch of
upland pasturage. He worked always to the north, though his way
was devious, and it was from the north that he seemed most to
apprehend that for which he was looking. He was no coward, but
his courage was only that of the average civilized man, and he
was looking to live, not die.
Up a small hillside he followed a cowpath through such dense
scrub that he was forced to dismount and lead his horse. But
when the path swung around to the west, he abandoned it and
headed to the north again along the oak-covered top of the
ridge.
The ridge ended in a steep descent-so steep that he zigzagged
back and forth across the face of the slope, sliding and
stumbling among the dead leaves and matted vines and keeping a
watchful eye on the horse above that threatened to fall down
upon him. The sweat ran from him, and the pollen-dust, settling
pungently in mouth and nostrils, increased his thirst. Try as
he would, nevertheless the descent was noisy, and frequently he
stopped, panting in the dry heat an d listening for any warning
from beneath.
At the bottom he came out on a flat, so densely forested that
he could not make out its extent. Here the character of the
woods changed, and he was able to remount. Instead of the
twisted hillside oaks, tall straight trees, big-trunked and
prosperous, rose from the damp fat soil. Only here and there
were thickets, easily avoided, while he encountered winding,
park-like glades where the cattle had pastured in the days
before war had run them off.
His progress was more rapid now, as he came down into the
valley, and at the end of half an hour he halted at an ancient
rail fence on the edge of a clearing. He did not like the
openness of it, yet his path lay across to the fringe of trees
that marked the banks of the stream. It was a mere quarter of a
mile across that open, but the thought of venturing out in it
was repugnant. A rifle, a score of them, a thousand, might lurk
in that fringe by the stream.
Twice he essayed to start, and twice he paused. He was appalled
by his own loneliness. The pulse of war that beat from the West
suggested the companionship of battling thousands; here was
naught but silence, and himself, and possible death-dealing
bullets from a myriad ambushes. And yet his task was to find
what he feared to find. He must on, and on, till somewhere,
some time, he encountered another man, or other men, from the
other side, scouting, as he was scouting, to make report, as he
must make report, of having come in touch.
Changing his mind, he skirted inside the woods for a distance,
and again peeped forth. This time, in the middle of the
clearing, he saw a small farmhouse. There were no signs of
life. No smoke curled from the chimney, not a barnyard fowl
clucked and strutted. The kitchen door stood open, and he gazed
so long and hard into the black aperture that it seemed almost
that a farmer's wife must emerge at any moment.
He licked the pollen and dust from his dry lips, stiffened
himself, mind and body, and rode out into the blazing sunshine.
Nothing stirred. He went on past the house, and approached the
wall of trees and bushes by the river's bank. One thought
persisted maddeningly. It was of the crash into his body of a
high-velocity bullet. It made him feel very fragile and
defenseless, and he crouched lower in the saddle.
Tethering his horse in the edge of the wood, he continued a
hundred yards on foot till he came to the stream. Twenty feet
wide it was, without perceptible current, cool and inviting,
and he was very thirsty. But he waited inside his screen of
leafage, his eyes fixed on the screen on the opposite side. To
make the wait endurable, he sat down, his carbine resting on
his knees. The minutes passed, and slowly his tenseness
relaxed. At last he decided there was no danger; but just as he
prepared to part the bushes and bend down to the water, a
movement among the opposite bushes caught his eye.
It might be a bird. But he waited. Again there was an agitation
of the bushes, and then, so suddenly that it almost startled a
cry from him, the bushes parted and a face peered out. It was a
face covered with several weeks' growth of ginger-colored
beard. The eyes were blue and wide apart, with
laughter-wrinkles in the comers that showed despite the tired
and anxious expression of the whole face.
All this he could see with microscopic clearness, for the
distance was no more than twenty feet. And all this he saw in
such brief time, that he saw it as he lifted his carbine to his
shoulder. He glanced along the sights, and knew that he was
gazing upon a man who was as good as dead. It was impossible to
miss at such point blank range.
But he did not shoot. Slowly he lowered the carbine and
watched. A hand, clutching a water-bottle, became visible and
the ginger beard bent downward to fill the bottle. He could
hear the gurgle of the water. Then arm and bottle and ginger
beard disappeared behind the closing bushes. A long time he
waited, when, with thirst unslaked, he crept back to his horse,
rode slowly across the sun-washed clearing, and passed into the
shelter of the woods beyond.
