Mounted on a wheel, with a revolver in each hand and a bowie knife between his teeth--theatrical even in his paroxysm of undoubted courage--glared Jim Hooker.

And Clarence Brant, with the whole responsibility of the field on his shoulders, even at that desperate moment, found himself recalling a vivid picture of the actor Hooker personating the character of "Red Dick" in "Rosalie, the Prairie Flower," as he had seen him in a California theatre five years before.
It wanted still an hour of the darkness that would probably close the fight of that day.

Could he hold out, keeping his offensive position so long?
A hasty council with his officers showed him that the weakness of their position had already infected them.

They reminded him that his line of retreat was still open--that in the course of the night the enemy, although still pressing towards the division centre, might yet turn and outflank him--or that their strangely delayed supports might come up before morning.

Brant's glass, however, remained fixed on the main column, still pursuing its way along the ridge.