In a few moments the firing ceased; but the boy ran on, hunting for a hiding-place.

He saw a troop of Alabamians plunge over a log in a charge, and roll in an awful, writhing, screaming pile of dying men and horses, and in the heap he saw the terror-stricken face of a youth, who was shrieking for help; John carried that fear-distorted face in his memory for years, until long afterwards it appeared in Sycamore Ridge.
But that day John fled from the death-trap almost mad with fear.
Rushing farther into the woods, he came upon General Lyon and his staff.

The plumed hats of the bodyguard told the boy that the sandy-haired man before him was in command, though the man's face was bloody from a wound in his head, and though his clothes were stained with blood and he was hatless.

He sat upright on his horse, and as the boy turned, he heard the voices of Captain Ward and his soldiers, begging to be sent into the fight.

It was a clamour fierce and piteous, and the general had turned his head to the Kansans, when something at the left startled him.