on which they had been prostrated, and joined the Lieutenant in
running the gun back to its place, and reloading it.

[Illustration: HOORAY FOR THE OLD BATTERY. 231]

"Hooray for the old battery! Bully boys! Made o' right stuff," shouted
Shorty enthusiastically. "Never ketch me saying nothin' agin' the
artillery agin. Men who act like that when they're standin' right in the
middle o' hell with the lid off are 18karat fine."

"Captain," suggested Si, who was fidgeting under the excitement of a
scene in which he was taking no part, "wouldn't it be well for some
of us to go up there and help the battery boys out? I could sponge and
ram."

"No," answered the Captain; "help has been sent for for them, and there
it comes."

He pointed back over the hill to where two batteries were coming from
different directions on a dead run. It was a magnificent sight. One
battery was following the road, and the other cutting across the open
space in a hot race to get ahead and be in action first.

The Captains were galloping ahead to point out the way. The Sergeants
were alongside, seconding the whips of the drivers with strokes of the
flats of their sabers on the animals' hanches. The six horses to each
gun were galloping like mad, snatching the heavy piece over gullies,
bumps, logs, and rocks as if it were a straw. The gunners had abandoned
their usual calm pose with folded arms on the limber chests, and were
maintaining their seats only by a desperate clutch on the side-irons.

The boys turned even from the storm in front to watch the thrilling
spectacle.

The two Captains were fairly abreast as they led their batteries up the
long slope, crushing the brush, sending sticks and stones flying from
the heavy, flying wheels. Both reached the crest at the same time, and
the teams, wheeling around at a gallop, flung the muzzles of the cannon
toward the enemy. Without waiting for them to stop the nimble cannoneers
sprang to ground, unlimbered the guns, rolled them into position, sent
loads down their black throats, and before it was fairly realized that
they had reached the crest hurled a storm of shells across the valley at
the rebel batteries.

"Hooray! Hooray! They're gittin' some o' their own medicine now,"
yelled the excited regiment. "Sock it to 'em. How do you like that, you
ill-begotten imps of rebels?"

The rebel cannoneers seemed to lose heart at once under the storm of
fire that beat upon them. The volume of their fire