II
Another day, hot and breathless. A deserted farmhouse, large,
with many outbuildings and an orchard, standing in a clearing.
From the Woods, on a roan horse, carbine across pommel, rode
the young man with the quick black eyes. He breathed with
relief as he gained the house. That a fight had taken place
here earlier in the season was evident. Clips and empty
cartridges, tarnished with verdigris, lay on the ground, which,
while wet, had been torn up by the hoofs of horses. Hard by the
kitchen garden were graves, tagged and numbered. From the oak
tree by the kitchen door, in tattered, weatherbeaten garments,
hung the bodies of two men. The faces, shriveled and defaced,
bore no likeness to the faces of men. The roan horse snorted
beneath them, and the rider caressed and soothed it and tied it
farther away.
Entering the house, he found the interior a wreck. He trod on
empty cartridges as he walked from room to room to reconnoiter
from the windows. Men had camped and slept everywhere, and on
the floor of one room he came upon stains unmistakable where
the wounded had been laid down.
Again outside, he led the horse around behind the barn and
invaded the orchard. A dozen trees were burdened with ripe
apples. He filled his pockets, eating while he picked. Then a
thought came to him, and he glanced at the sun, calculating the
time of his return to camp. He pulled off his shirt, tying the
sleeves and making a bag. This he proceeded to fill with
apples.
As he was about to mount his horse, the animal suddenly pricked
up its ears. The man, too, listened, and heard, faintly, the
thud of hoofs on soft earth. He crept to the corner of the barn
and peered out. A dozen mounted men, strung out loosely,
approaching from the opposite side of the clearing, were only a
matter of a hundred yards or so away. They rode on to the
house. Some dismounted, while others remained in the saddle as
an earnest that their stay would be short. They seemed to be
holding a council, for he could hear them talking excitedly in
the detested tongue of the alien invader. The time passed, but
they seemed unable to reach a decision. He put the carbine away
in its boot, mounted, and waited impatiently, balancing the
shirt of apples on the pommel.
He heard footsteps approaching, and drove his spurs so fiercely
into the roan as to force a surprised groan from the animal as
it leaped forward. At the comer of the barn he saw the
intruder, a mere boy of nineteen or twenty for all of his
uniform jump back to escape being run down. At the same moment
the roan swerved and its rider caught a glimpse of the aroused
men by the house. Some were springing from their horses, and he
could see the rifles going to their shoulders. He passed the
kitchen door and the dried corpses swinging in the shade,
compelling his foes to run around the front of the house. A
rifle cracked, and a second, but he was going fast, leaning
forward, low in the saddle, one hand clutching the shirt of
apples, the other guiding the horse.
The top bar of the fence was four feet high, but he knew his
roan and leaped it at full career to the accompaniment of
several scattered shots. Eight hundred yards straight away were
the woods, and the roan was covering the distance with mighty
strides. Every man was now firing. pumping their guns so
rapidly that he no longer heard individual shots. A bullet went
through his hat, but he was unaware, though he did know when
another tore through the apples on the pommel. And he winced
and ducked even lower when a third bullet, fired low, struck a
stone between his horse's legs and ricochetted off through the
air, buzzing and humming like some incredible insect.
The shots died down as the magazines were emptied, until,
quickly, there was no more shooting. The young man was elated.
Through that astonishing fusillade he had come unscathed. He
glanced back. Yes, they had emptied their magazines. He could
see several reloading. Others were running back behind the
house for their horses. As he looked, two already mounted, came
back into view around the comer, riding hard. And at the same
moment, he saw the man with the unmistakable ginger beard kneel
down on the ground, level his gun, and coolly take his time for
the long shot.
The young man threw his spurs into the horse, crouched very
low, and swerved in his flight in order to distract the other's
aim. And still the shot did not come. With each jump of the
horse, the woods sprang nearer. They were only two hundred
yards away and still the shot was delayed.
And then he heard it, the last thing he was to hear, for he was
dead ere he hit the ground in the long crashing fall from the
saddle. And they, watching at the house, saw him fall, saw his
body bounce when it struck the earth, and saw the burst of
red-cheeked apples that rolled about him. They laughed at the
unexpected eruption of apples, and clapped their hands in
applause of the long shot by the man with the ginger beard.
