o
fire upon Vicksburg. Huge shells and shot were rained upon the city.
Pemberton had two hundred guns facing the river and the army, but to
spare his ammunition they made little reply.

Dick looked back now and then. He saw flakes of fire on the northern
horizon, puffs of smoke and the curving shells. He felt that Vicksburg
was no pleasant place to be in just now, and yet it must be full of
civilians, many of them women and children. He was sorry for them. It
was Dick's nature to see both sides of a quarrel. He could never hate
the Southerners, because they saw one way and he another.

It was a passing emotion. It was too fine a morning for youth to grieve.
At the distance the plumes of smoke made by the shells became decorative
rather than deadly. From a crest he saw upon the plateau of Vicksburg
and even discerned the dim outline of houses. Looking the other way,
he saw the smoke of the iron-clads down the river, and he also caught
glimpses of the Mississippi, gold in the morning sun over its vast
breadth.

Then he entered the thickets, and, bearing in mind the kindly warning
of the old colonel, proceeded slowly and with extreme caution. The
Southerners knew every inch of the ground here and he knew none. He
came to a ravine and to his dismay found that a considerable stream was
flowing through it toward the bayou. It was yellow water, and he thought
he might find a tree, fallen across the stream, which would serve him as
a foot log, but a hunt of a few minutes disclosed none, and, hesitating
no longer, he prepared to wade.

He put his belt with the pistols in it around his neck and stepped in
boldly. His feet sank in the mud. The water rose to his knees and then
to his waist. It was, in truth, deeper than he had expected--one could
never tell about these yellow, opaque streams. He took another step and
plunged into a hole up to his shoulders.

Angry that he should be wet through and through, and with such muddy
water too, he crossed the stream.

He looked down with dismay at his uniform. The sun would soon dry it,
but until he got a chance to clean it, it would remain discolored and
yellow, like the jeans clothes which the poorer farmers of the South
often wore. And yet the accident that he bemoaned, the bath in water
thick with mud, was to prove his salvation.

Dick shook himself like a big dog, throwing off as much of the water as
he could. He had kept his pistols dry and he rebuckled his belt around
his w