e."

"This is the dumbedest country for cuttin' down trees the wrong way,"
Si sadly remarked, as he surveyed the abatis. "It's meaner'n midnight
murder. I'd like to git hold o' the pizen whelp what invented it."

"The devil invented abatis, just after he invented hell, and as an
improvement on it, and just before he invented secession," Shorty
judged hotly. "When we git through them abatis there I'm goin' to kill
everything I find, just to learn 'em to stop sich heathenish work. It's
sneakin' murder, not war."

"When we get through," murmured Alf Russell dolefully. "How many of us
will ever get through?"

"Who'll be the Jim Humphreys and Gid Mackals this time?" said Monty
Scruggs, looking at the tangled mass of tree-tops.

"Can you see any path through this abatis, Sergeant?" nervously asked
Harry Joslyn.

"No, Harry," said Si, kindly and encouragingly. "But we'll find some way
to git through. There's probably a path that we kin strike. Stay close
by me, and we'll try our best."

"Well, I for one am goin' through, and I'm goin' to take Pete and
Sandy with me," said Shorty, in a loud, confident tone, to brace up the
others. "I've always gone through every one o' them things I've struck
yit, and this ain't no worse'n the others. But we ought to jump 'em at
once, while they're shiverin' over the shelling' we give 'em. They must
be shakin' up there yit like a dog on a January mornin'. Why don't we
start, I wonder?"

The batteries behind them began throwing shells slowly and deliberately,
as if testing their range, before beginning a general cannonade.
All along the crest, to their right and to their left, could be seen
regiments moving up and going into line of battle.

"It's goin' to be a big smash this time, sure," said Si. "And the 200th
Injianny's got a front seat at the performance. We'll show them how to
do it, and we're just the ones that kin. Brace up, boys. The eyes of the
whole army's on us. They expect big things from us."

"Here she goes, I guess," he continued, as a bugle sounded at
headquarters. "Everybody git ready to jump at the word, and not stop
goin' till we're inside the works."

The lines stiffened, every one drew a long breath, gripped his gun, and
braced himself for the fiery ordeal. There was an anxious wait, and then
the Adjutant came walking quietly down the line, with his horse's bridle
over his arm.

"It seems," he explained to Capt. McGillicuddy, loud enough for the
company to he