The Collected Works of Ambrose Bierce

The Collected Works of Ambrose
Bierce

The Project Gutenberg EBook of The Collected Works of Ambrose
Bierce, Vol.
II: In the Midst of Life: Tales of Soldiers and Civilians, by Ambrose
Bierce This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and
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Title: The Collected Works of Ambrose Bierce, Vol. II: In the Midst of
Life: Tales of Soldiers and Civilians
Author: Ambrose Bierce
Release Date: August 30, 2004 [EBook #13334]
Language: English
Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1
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BIERCE, VOL. II ***

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THE COLLECTED WORKS OF AMBROSE BIERCE
VOLUME II
IN THE MIDST OF LIFE
TALES OF SOLDIERS AND CIVILIANS

Originally Published 1909
PREFACE TO THE FIRST EDITION
Denied existence by the chief publishing houses of the country, this
book owes itself to Mr. E.L.G. Steele, merchant, of this city. In
attesting Mr. Steele's faith in his judgment and his friend, it will serve
its author's main and best ambition.
A.B.
SAN FRANCISCO, Sept. 4, 1891.

CONTENTS
A HORSEMAN IN THE SKY 15 AN OCCURRENCE AT OWL
CREEK BRIDGE 27 CHICKAMAUGA 46 A SON OF THE GODS 58
ONE OF THE MISSING 71 KILLED AT RESACA 93 THE AFFAIR
AT COULTER'S NOTCH 105 THE COUP DE GRÂCE 122 PARKER
ADDERSON, PHILOSOPHER 133 AN AFFAIR OF OUTPOSTS 146
THE STORY OF A CONSCIENCE 165 ONE KIND OF OFFICER
178 ONE OFFICER, ONE MAN 197 GEORGE THURSTON 209
THE MOCKING-BIRD 218
CIVILIANS
THE MAN OUT OF THE NOSE 233 AN ADVENTURE AT
BROWNVILLE 247 THE FAMOUS GILSON BEQUEST 266 THE
APPLICANT 281 A WATCHER BY THE DEAD 290 THE MAN
AND THE SNAKE 311 A HOLY TERROR 324 THE SUITABLE
SURROUNDINGS 350 THE BOARDED WINDOW 364 A LADY
FROM RED HORSE 373 THE EYES OF THE PANTHER 385

SOLDIERS

A HORSEMAN IN THE SKY
I
One sunny afternoon in the autumn of the year 1861 a soldier lay in a
clump of laurel by the side of a road in western Virginia. He lay at full
length upon his stomach, his feet resting upon the toes, his head upon
the left forearm. His extended right hand loosely grasped his rifle. But
for the somewhat methodical disposition of his limbs and a slight

rhythmic movement of the cartridge-box at the back of his belt he
might have been thought to be dead. He was asleep at his post of duty.
But if detected he would be dead shortly afterward, death being the just
and legal penalty of his crime.
The clump of laurel in which the criminal lay was in the angle of a road
which after ascending southward a steep acclivity to that point turned
sharply to the west, running along the summit for perhaps one hundred
yards. There it turned southward again and went zigzagging downward
through the forest. At the salient of that second angle was a large flat
rock, jutting out northward, overlooking the deep valley from which the
road ascended. The rock capped a high cliff; a stone dropped from its
outer edge would have fallen sheer downward one thousand feet to the
tops of the pines. The angle where the soldier lay was on another spur
of the same cliff. Had he been awake he would have commanded a
view, not only of the short arm of the road and the jutting rock, but of
the entire profile of the cliff below it. It might well have made him
giddy to look.
The country was wooded everywhere except at the bottom of the valley
to the northward, where there was a small natural meadow, through
which flowed a stream scarcely visible from the valley's rim. This open
ground looked hardly larger than an ordinary door-yard, but was really
several acres in extent. Its green was more vivid than that of the
inclosing forest. Away beyond it rose a line of giant cliffs similar to
those upon which we are supposed to stand in our survey of the savage
scene, and through which the road had somehow made its climb to the
summit. The configuration of the valley, indeed, was such that from
this point of observation it seemed entirely shut in, and one could but
have wondered how the road which found a way out of it had found a
way into it, and whence came and whither went the waters of the
stream that parted the meadow more than a thousand feet below.
No country is so wild and difficult but men will make it a theatre of
war; concealed in