ad fallen. The battle was raging beyond; the troops had
passed on; the ground was deserted. But there lay Winch's gun; with his
cartridge-box beside it. Near by was Ellis's piece, abandoned where it
had fallen. There, too, lay the red badge which had been shot from
Frank's arm. He picked it up, thinking his mother would like to have him
preserve it.

Then he slipped on the cartridge-box, and took up Winch's gun; for this
was the resolution which inspired him--to assume the poltroon's place in
the company, and by his own conduct to atone for the disgrace he had
brought upon it.

But the gun-stock was, as has been said, shattered; and Frank could not
have the satisfaction of revenging himself and his comrades for Winch's
cowardice with Winch's own gun. So he threw it down, and took up Ellis's,
which he found ready loaded and primed.

While he was examining the piece, he remembered the shots which he had
taken for spent balls, and bethought him to look around the woods in the
direction from which they had come. Raising his eyes above the
undergrowth, he beheld a singular phenomenon.

At first, he thought it was a wild animal--a coon, or a wildcat, coming
down a tree. Then there were two wildcats, descending together, or
preparing to descend. Then the wildcats became two human legs clasped
around the trunk, and two human arms appeared enjoying an equally close
hug above them. The body to which these visible members appertained was
itself invisible, being on the farther side of the trunk.

"That's the chap that was shooting at us!" was Frank's instantaneous
conviction.

And now he could plainly discern an object slung across the man's back,
as his movements swung it around a little to one side. It was the
sharpshooter's rifle.

Frank was so excited that he felt himself trembling--not with fear, but
with the very ardor of his ambition.

"Since he has had two shots at me, why shouldn't I have as much as one at
him?"

To disable and bring in the rebel who had shot the badge from his
arm--what a triumph!

But he was not in a good position for an effective shot, even if he could
have made up his mind to fire at a person who, though without doubt an
enemy, was not at the moment defending himself. It seemed, after all, too
dreadful a thing deliberately to kill a man.

Frank's excitement did not embarrass his faculties in the least, but only
rendered them all the more keenly alive and vigilant. It took him but a
momen