the circle.

Halfway to Ewell and he stopped when he saw two familiar figures, sitting
on a log. They were elderly men in uniforms riddled by bullets. The
right arm of one and the left leg of the other were tightly bandaged.
Their faces were very white and it was obvious that they were sitting
there, because they were not strong enough to stand.

Harry stopped. No message, no matter how important, could have kept him
from stopping.

"Colonel Talbot! Colonel St. Hilaire!" he cried.

"Yes, here we are, Harry," replied Colonel Leonidas Talbot in a voice,
thin but full of courage. "Hector has been shot through the leg and has
lost much blood, but I have bound up his wound, and he has done as much
for my arm, which has been bored through from side to side by a bullet,
which must have been as large as my fist."

"And so for a few minutes," said Lieutenant-Colonel St. Hilaire,
valiantly, "we must let General Lee conduct the victory alone."

"And the Invincibles!" exclaimed Harry, horrified. "Are they all gone
but you?"

"Not at all," replied Colonel Talbot. "There is so much smoke about that
you can't see much, but if it clears a little you will behold Lieutenant
St. Clair and the youth rightly called Happy Tom and some three score
others, lying among the bushes, not far ahead of you, giving thorough
attention to the enemy."

"And is that all that's left of the Invincibles?"

"It's a wonder that they're so many. You were right about this man,
Grant, Harry. He's a fighter, and their artillery is numerous and
wonderful. John Carrington himself must be in front of us. We have not
seen him, but the circumstantial evidence is conclusive. Nobody else in
the world could have swept this portion of the Wilderness with shell and
shrapnel in such a manner. Why, he has mowed down the bushes in long
swathes as the scythe takes the grass and he has cut down our men with
them. How does the battle go elsewhere?"

"We're succeeding. We're driving 'em back. I can stop only a moment
now. I'm on my way to General Ewell."

"Then hurry. Don't be worried about us. I'll help Hector and Hector
will help me. And do you curve further to the rear, Harry. The worst
thing that a dispatch bearer can do is to get himself shot."

Waving his hand in farewell Harry galloped away. He knew that Colonel
Talbot had given him sound advice, and he bore back from the front,
coming once more into lonely thickets, although the flash