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 corner 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 corner, 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.