nd thousands of them and then
many thousands more. They're going to strike full upon us here!"

"Let 'em come. We're taking root, growing deep into the ground and old
'Pap' Thomas has grown deepest of us all! It'll be impossible to move
us!"

"I hope so. There go our own cannon, too, and it's a welcome sound!
I can see the gaps smashed in their ranks by our fire, and ah, I see,
too--"

He stopped short in amazed surprise, and Pennington in wonder asked:

"What is it you see, Dick?"

"There's a heavy cavalry force on their flank, and I caught a glimpse
of a man on a great horse leading it. I know him. He's Colonel George
Kenton, father of Harry Kenton, that cousin of mine, of whom I've spoken
to you so often."

"And here he comes charging you! But it's happened hundreds and hundreds
of times in this war that relatives have come face to face in battle,
and it'll happen hundreds of times more. Are they within rifle shot,
Dick?"

"Not yet, but they soon will be."

He slung the glasses back over his shoulder. The eye alone was
sufficient now to watch the charging columns. All the artillery on both
sides was coming into action, and the ripping crash of so many cannon
became so great that the officers could no longer hear one another
unless they shouted. The gorges and hills caught up the sound and gave
it back in increased volume.

Dick heard a new note in the thunder. It was made by the swift beat
of hoofs, thousands of them, and the hair on his neck prickled at the
roots. Forrest and the wild cavalry of the South were charging on their
flanks. He felt a sudden horror lest he be trampled under the hoofs of
horses. By some curious twist of the mind his dread of such a fate was
far more acute at that moment than his fear of shells and bullets.

Colonel Winchester, shouting imperiously, ordered him and all the
other young officers to step back now and lie down. Dick obeyed, and he
crouched by the side of Warner and Pennington. The great bank of
fire and smoke was rolling nearer and yet nearer, and the cannon were
fighting one another with all the speed and power of the gunners. Off on
the flank the ominous tread of Southern horsemen was coming fast.

Bullets began now to rain among them. The regiment would have been swept
away bodily had the men not been lying down. But their time to wait and
hold their fire was at an end. The colonel gave the word, and a sheet of
light leaped from the mouths of their rifles. A va