Ambrose Bierce has been compared to Edgar Allan Poe as a master of horror. Here, he vividly conjures the mysterious frontier as an isolated woodsman is forced to confront the supernatural terrors of life and death! “Do you think, colonel, that your brave Coulter would like to put one of his guns in here!” the general asked. He was apparently not altogether serious; it certainly did not seem a place where any artillerist, however brave, would like to put a gun. The colonel thought that possibly his division commander meant good-humouredly to intimate that Captain Coulter’s courage had been too highly extolled in a recent conversation between them. “General,” he replied warmly, “Coulter would like to put a gun anywhere within reach of those people,” with a motion of his hand in the direction of the enemy.