ad he
insisted, I should have told him flatly who and what I was--and paid the
penalty.

I had scarce rejoined Tybee at the wagons when the long roll of the
drums broke the silence of the hilltop, and a volley fire of musketry
from the rock breastwork on the right told us the battle was on. Tybee
gave me one last reproachful look and stood out to see what could be
seen, and I stood with him.

"Your friends are running," he said, when there was no reply to the
opening volley; and truly, I feared he was right. At the bottom of the
slope, scattering groups of the riflemen could be seen hastening to
right and left. But I would not admit the charge to Tybee.

"I think not," I objected, denying the apparent fact. "They have come
too far and too fast to turn back now for a single overshot volley."

"But they'll never face the fire up the hill with the bayonet to cap it
at the top," he insisted.

"That remains to be seen; we shall know presently. Ah, I thought so;
here they come!"

At the word the forest-covered steep at our end of the hill sprang alive
with dun-clad figures darting upward from tree to tree. Volley after
volley thundered down upon them as they climbed, but not once did the
dodging charge up the slope pause or falter. Unlike all other irregulars
I had ever seen, whose idea of a battle is to let off the piece and run,
these mountain men held their fire like veterans, closing in upon the
hilltop steadily and in a grim silence broken only by the shouting
encouragements of the leaders--this until their circling line was
completed.

Then suddenly from all sides of the beleaguered camp arose a yell to
shake the stoutest courage, and with that the wood-covered slopes began
to spit fire, not in volleys, but here and there in irregular snappings
and cracklings as the sure-shot riflemen saw a mark to pull trigger on.

The effect of this fine-bead target practice--for it was naught
else--was most terrific. All along the breastwork, front and rear,
crouching men sprang up at the rifle crackings to fling their arms all
abroad and to fall writhing and wrestling in the death throe. At our end
of the hill, where the rock barrier was thinnest, the slaughter was
appalling; and above the din of the firearms we could hear the bellowed
commands of the sturdy old Indian fighter, Benjamin Cleaveland, urging
his men up to still closer quarters. "A little nearer, my brave boys; a
little nearer and we have them! Press on up to