They were now seven-eighths of the way through this engagement that, in the minds of most of his men, still lay in the future. Bob was not the only one who heard the dog barking: voices up ahead were calling it by name, telling it to shut up. If Bob was lucky, they’d still be lying in their beds cursing the dog at the moment he kicked the door down. But that would have been very lucky indeed. A squall of whinnies and hoofbeats erupted from far ahead, off to their right: Whig Association cavalry, which had converged on this place from another quarter. Even Bob’s wrecked ears could make out that much, and one of the younger soldiers insisted that he could hear a carriage moving somewhere off to their right. It was too soon for the inhabitants of this farm, estate, or whatever it was, to have gotten a carriage of their own out on to the road, and so Bob supposed this must be some officers or gentlemen come to observe, remark, criticize, countermand, or otherwise improve upon Bob’s conduct of the operation.