Deck did not "let the grass grow under his feet." The first battalion went ahead on the double-quick, and soon a fierce hand-to-hand encounter was under way among the rocks. A dozen cavalrymen were wounded, and the Confederates fell back to a point midway between the defile and the highway.
Those Confederates who had gone down into the cut were now trying to gain the heights where the fighting was going on. But Deck was ready for them, and sent Major Belthorpe to the edge of the defile with two companies of the second battalion and Artie Lyon's company of the first. They fired directly down upon the heads of the Confederates, and in less than five minutes had the enemy retreating in the wildest confusion.
Deck had swung his three companies around, so that they had their backs to the defile. He could hear the sharpshooters pushing the enemy through the woods toward him. Presently the Confederates appeared, and the whole company which had occupied this ground originally was surrounded. Ten men were killed and an equal number wounded, and then the officer in command, a lieutenant, held up his sword, hilt first, to which was tied a white handkerchief; and the battle in that vicinity came to an end.
As soon as the company, or what was left of it, surrendered, Deck sent a battalion and a half after those who were fleeing. But the Confederates were filled with terror, thinking the reënforcements had surely come, with sharpshooters in advance, and they continued to retreat at the full speed of their horses. They were pursued for half a mile, and then the chase was given up.
An examination proved that the Riverlawns had lost eight men in killed and wounded, and the Confederates had lost nearly twice that number. Fifteen of the enemy had been captured, including an officer who said he had once practised as a surgeon. To his care were consigned all the wounded Confederates, who were, later on, carried to a farmhouse a quarter of a mile away. The wounded of the Riverlawns were turned over to Doctor Farnwright, the regular surgeon of the regiment, and the dead were buried with proper ceremonies at the spot where they had fallen.
"You did the trick, Major!" cried Tom Belthorpe, after it was all over. "It was one of the neatest moves I ever saw!"
"It saved our goose from being cooked," laughed Deck. He felt that he could afford to be light-hearted now.
"That's so,—I was too hasty in what I said," answered Kate Belthorpe's brother. "But what horse is that you are riding?"
"One taken from the enemy, Tom."
"And where is Ceph?"