Page:Harvey O'Higgins--Silent Sam and other stories.djvu/340

328 climbed the bank into the woods and crept along to where we could see the road. It was just about dawn—light enough to see them dragging along, half asleep in their saddles—so much steam rising from the horses you could scarcely see the riders. Tired. It had been a red-hot day. They were riding in undershirts and trousers—and they looked less like glorious war and heroic warriors than anything you ever saw in a book of battles—like a procession of tin-peddlers, the way their sabers rattled."

He made a gesture, dismissing the picture. "My orders were to report to Cincinnati. I had fooled that crowd of corn-crackers once, and I thought I 'd try it again. They were trailing along, with gaps between them, and nobody was paying any attention to anything he passed, apparently; and I thought if I could come down on them full sweep in the hand-car, if I did n't strike on one of the gaps, I 'd probably scare the horses into opening up to let me through—do you see? A hand-car can make quite a noise, rattling down on you that way. I thought we could help it with a yell at the right minute. The only thing was: had they torn up the track?

"To find that out, I had to turn off through the woods, as near as possible to the crossing, to look at the rails. I was careless, maybe. Anyway I ran head on into a squad of men lying down under the trees. They grabbed me. I knocked two or three of them over before some one struck me a crack on the head with the butt of a carbine.