The Forrest City times., 1895-09-20
THE SENTRY'S SHOT.
BY AMBROSE PIERCE.

One sunny afternoon Tn the autumn of the year 1861 a soldier lay in clump of laurel by the side of road in western Virginia He lay at full length on his stomach his feet resting upon the toes, his head upon the left forearm. His extended right hand loosely grasped his rife. But for the somewhat methodical disposition of his limbs and slight rhythmic move ment of the cartridge 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, that being the penalty of his crime
 The clump of laurel in which the criminal lay was in the angle of road which, after ascending southward 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 sec ond angle was large flat rock, jut- ting from the ridge to the northward, overlooking the deep valley from which the road ascended. The rock capped a high cliff: 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 view. not only of the short arm of the road and the jutting rock, but of the entire pro- tile of the cliff below it.
 The country was wooded everywhere except at the bottom of the valley to the northward, where there was small natural meadow, through which flowed stream scarcely visible from the valleys rim. This open ground looked hardly larger than an ordinary dooryard, 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 it's climb to the summit. The confguration of the valley. indeed, was such that from our point of observation it seemed en- tirely shut in, and one could not but have wondered how the road which found 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 two thousand feet below.
 No country is so wild and difficult but men will make it theater of war; concealed in the forest at the bottom of that military rat-trap, in which half hundred men in possession of the exits might have starved an army to submission, lay five regiments of fed eral infantry. They had marched all the previous day and night and were resting. At nightfall they would take to the road again, climb to the place where their unfaithful sentinel now slept. and, descending the other slope of the ridge, fall upon a camp of the enemy at about midnight. Their hope was to surprise it, for the road led to the rear of it. In case of failure, their position would be perilous in the ex- treme.
 The sleeping sentinel in the clump of laurel was young Virginian named Carter Druse. lie was the son of wealthy parents, an only child, and had known such ease and cultivation and high living as wealth and taste were able to command in the noun taia country of western Virginia. His home was but few miles from where he now lay. One morning he had risen from the breakfast table and said, quietly: Father, a union regiment has arrived at Grafton. I am going to join it."
 The father lifted his leonine head, looked at the son a moment in silence, and replied: "Go, Carter, and, what ever may occur, do what you conceive to be your duty. Virginia, to which you are traitor, must get on without you. Should we both live to the end