Each hand gripped a brown rifle, and the fingers that met mine were rough and hard from toil.

No man among them had asked me a question; with Farrell's simple statement there had come the hand-grip, the eyes looking straight into my own; the silent acceptance of me as comrade.

It all served to drive into my consciousness the fact that these were men seeking nothing for themselves, but ready to battle and die for the cause they had espoused.

They had left their ploughs in the furrow to strike a blow for liberty.
It was an hour or more after dark when our compact little body of horsemen rode down a gully into a broad creek bottom, and then advanced through a fringe of trees to the edge of the stream.

There was a young moon in the sky yielding a spectral light, barely making those faces nearest me visible.