oneers fairly picked their steps among squirming reptiles. A stream,
sometimes large as a river, crawling languidly through deep fissures in
the red shale, protected the left flank of the column. The cavalry was
forced to hold the narrow wood road, as the bush was hardly passable
for men.

"Hi, Jack!" Barney cries, catching his breath at the edge of a muddy
stream, "what sort of a place must the rebels be in if they let us
promenade through such a jungle as this unopposed?"

"I have been thinking of that," Jack replies. And so had every man in
the expedition--for to think was one of the drawbacks as well as one of
the excellences of the soldier in the civil war. But presently, after
five hours of laborious work, a halt is called. The men dive into their
haversacks, and even the brackish water in the nearest sedge pond has a
flavor of nectar and the invigoration of a tonic. On they tear again,
the whole body pushing on in skirmish-like dispersion. Suddenly the land
changes. They are climbing a rolling table-land, cleared in some places
as though the axe of the settler had been at work. The march is now
easier and the picket-lines are strengthened. Then a sharp volley comes,
as if from the tree-tops.

The march is instantly halted. The mass, moving in a column, is
deployed--that is, stretched out to cover a mile or more as it moves
forward; the cavalry divides and rides far to right and left, to see
that no ambush is set to enable the rebels to sneak in behind the vast
human broom, as it sweeps through the solemn aisles of the pines, now
rising in vernal columns thicker and thicker. The firing is going on now
in scattering volleys, and soon the wounded--a dozen or more--are
carried back through the silent ranks. Joking has now ceased. Lips are
compressed; eyes glitter, and the men avoid meeting each other's gaze.
It is the moment of all moments, the most trying to the soldier, when he
is expecting every instant a hurricane of bullets, and yet sees no one
to avenge his anguish on or forestall in the deadly work. But they have
been moving forward all the time, the hurtling bullets sweeping through
the leafy covering, now and then thumping into the soft pine with a
vicious joyousness, as if to say to each man, "The next is for you, see
how well our work is done." For these hideous missiles have a language
of their own, as every man that stood fire can tell. The skirmishers are
now all drawn in. The solid line must do the w