boy to him, strode
over the fallen limbs, and took the dashing downpour with stolid
indifference.

"Close up, boys! Close up!" shouted Shorty from time to time, "Don't
mind a little sprinkle like this. It'll lay the dust, and make marchin'
easier. Come along, Peter, my son. I'm not goin' to lose you."

Night suddenly came, with pitchy darkness, but Si steadily forged
onward. Then the rain ceased as suddenly as it began, but the road was
encumbered with fallen timber and swirling races of muddy water. They
seemed more uncomfortable even than when the rain was falling. They were
now nearing the mill, and the sound of a fitful musketry fire came to
their ears.

"They've sneaked up in the storm to attack the mill," Si called out to
Shorty. "Close up and prepare for action."

"Goodness," gasped Gid Mackall, much of whose vim had been soaked out of
him by the fearful downpour, and who was oppressed by fatigue, hunger,
and the dense blackness of the night in the strange woods. "You don't
have to fight when you're wetter'n a drowned rat, and so tired you're
ready to drop, do you?"

"That's what you do," said Shorty, wiping off his musket. "That's the
way you'll have to do most o' your fightin'. The miserabler you feel the
miserabler you want to make the other fellers feel. Boys, turn your guns
upside down and let the water run out. Then half-cock 'em, and blow into
'em to clean the water out o' the tubes. Then find a dry rag somewhere
about you, and wipe off the nipples. We want every gun to go off when
the order is given. Don't anybody load till Si gives the order."

The drenched but excited boys followed his directions with nervous
haste. Shorty took one gun after another and examined it, while Si
went forward a little ways to reconnoiter. The calm deliberation of the
partners steadied the nervous boys.

"Load," called back Si, from the vantage ground of a little knoll, upon
which he was standing, trying to see into the darkness beyond. A volley
from out in front responded to the sound of his voice, and bullets
knocked bark off the big chestnut behind which he had shrewdly taken
refuge.

"Jest as I expected, Si," Shorty called back to him. "The rebels have
throwed back a squad to watch for us."

"Yes," said Si, coolly, as he stepped back to meet the boys. "There
ain't but 10 o' them, though. I counted every flash and located 'em.
They're all in a bunch right over there by a dead tree to the left. Move
up there qui