Under Fire: A Tale of the Shenandoah Valley — page 75: what you’re looking at

Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.

68 THE PURSUIT AND RESULT. ; Another wild yell greeted this performance. Another useless fusillade followed. ‘“Two,’? said the captain. “They are paying dear for this adventure.” A third shot emptied a third saddle. Captain’ Chetwood was an unerring marksman. Had he been at all excited, it is more than probable that he would have missed his men. But he had long since learned how much Basti on steadiness of nerve. A shot from Colonel Trafton’s revolver chipped a bit of leather out of Royal’s saddle, and ue wounded his horse on the neck. ‘‘Here’s for number four!”? Chetwood emptied the fourth chamber of his re- volver. This time the ball struck one of the horses squarely in the forehead. With a bound the animal pitched his rider into the ditch, and dropped, a quivering mass, upon the highway. . Only two were left. Colonel Trafton and one subaltern. ‘‘He’s a devil with that weapon!’ cried the man. ‘‘He seems to pick us off as easily as though we were puppets at a target range. It’s sure death, colonel; we’d better let him go.” ‘‘ Never!’ exclaimed T'rafton, whose natural cow- ardice was quite overshadowed by his intense vindic- tive feeling against the man he now regarded as his rival in love. The soldier, however, had no desire to goon . record as a dead hero. _ He was no coward. But what avail is it to face sure death? If his resolution to follow had faltered, a bullet furrowing a line of red across his cheek determined his course. “We - ~ €omicbooks.co