e guns, snatched from the worsted gray-coats, are safe in the hands of
their masters. Again the smoke obscures the picture; again it clears
away, and now the gray are in greater force than before, and the
horseless batteries are again the prize of this rapacious grapple.
Swarming in from three sides, the gray again hold the contested pieces.
The blue vanish into the thick bushes. Another irruption, another pall
of smoke, and Jack's heart bounds in exultant joy, for he sees the New
York flag in the van. Sherman has reached the point of dispute. But
alas! the guns are run back, and as the gray lines sway rearward in
billowy, regular measure, they retain the Titanically contested trophies.

The sun is now far beyond the meridian. The Union lines are closing up
compactly. One more such grapple as the last and the broad plateau where
the rebel artillery is massed, pointing westward, northward, eastward,
will be won. But a palsy seems to have settled on the lines of blue.
They are motionless, while their adversaries are hurrying men from some
secret place, where they seem to be inexhaustible. The whole battle is
now within the compass of a mile. But where can these hordes come from?
Surely, General McDowell has never been mad enough to leave them
disengaged along the fords! No; they do not come from that direction.
They come at the very center of the rebel rear. Can it be that troops
are arriving from Richmond? The Southern lines are longer than the
Northern, but they have been since the first moment Jack got a glimpse
of them. He could see, too, that they were thinner: that on the spur of
the plateau in front of the massed rebel artillery a single brigade was
holding the Union mass at bay. He can almost hear the rebel commands as
the re-enforcements pour in. But now the thunder breaks out anew, rolls
in vengeful fury around the western and northern base of the plateau.
The gray lines stagger; the falling men block the steps of the living.
Surely now McDowell is going to do or die. Yes. The iron game goes on;
the blue lines jostle and crush forward. They are at the last wall of
resistance. But what is the sound at his very feet? As Jack looks down
in the narrow way between the hill he is on and the plateau on the very
edge of the Union line--in fact, behind it now, for it has moved forward
since he took post--a rushing mass of gray-clad soldiery is moving
forward on the dead run. In one instant the head of the column is where