For an instant the attacking Southerners stood aghast at the sight of this raging man in gray who defended a Yankee officer; and yet he had made no saber stroke to wound or kill; instead, his weapon had come between their own and the life of a well-nigh helpless foe.  For a moment more they paused and looked with wondering eyes, and in that moment their victory was changed to rout.

A bugle blared.  A thundering rush of hoof beats sounded on the road, and the Union reenforcements swept around the curve.  Six abreast they came, a regiment of strong, straight riders, hungry for battle, hot to retrieve the losing fortune of the day.  The road was too narrow for a concentrated rush, so they streamed into the fields on either side, re-formed, and swept like an avalanche of blue upon their prey.  The guns in the woods now thundered forth afresh, their echoes rolling out across the hills, and the attacking Rebels turned and fled, like leaves before a storm.

On one side of the road, Morrison and Cary shrank down beside the wall to let the Union riders pass; on the other, all that was left of the Rebel force ran helter-skelter for a screen of protecting trees.  But before the last one disappeared he threw up his gun and fired, haphazard, in the direction whence he had come.

As if in reply came the sound of a saber falling from a man’s hand and striking on a stone.  Under his very eyes and just as he was putting out his hand to grip the others Morrison saw Herbert Cary sinking slowly to the ground.

And then, through the yellow dust clouds and the powder smoke and all the horrid reek of war, a child came running with outstretched arms and piteous voice—­a frightened child, weeping for the father who had thrown himself headlong into peril to save another’s life and who, perhaps, had lost his own.

CHAPTER IX

The headquarters of the Army of the Potomac on the morning of August 4, 1864, were at City Point near where the Appomattox meets the James.  Here the grim, silent man in whose hands lay the destinies of the United States sent out the telegrams which kept the Federal forces gnawing at the cage in which Lee had shut himself and meanwhile held to his strategic position south of Richmond.  To his left and west lay Petersburg still unconquered, but Petersburg could wait, for Early’s gray clad troopers were scourging the Shenandoah and the menace must be removed.  To this end Grant had sent a telegram to Washington three days before expressing in unmistakable terms what he wished General Sheridan and his cavalry to accomplish.  They were to go over into the Shenandoah and, putting themselves south of the enemy, follow him to the death.  To which telegram the tall, lank, furrow-faced man in the White House whose kindly heart was bursting with the strain replied in characteristic fashion and told him that his purpose was exactly right.  And then, with a gleam of humor, warned him against influences in Washington which would prevent its carrying out unless he forced it.