an to feel rebellion at his harsh tasks.

They fretted and complained each to each. "Oh, say, this is too much of
a good thing! Why can't somebody send us supports?"

"We ain't never goin' to stand this second banging. I didn't come here
to fight the hull damn' rebel army."

There was one who raised a doleful cry. "I wish Bill Smithers had trod
on my hand, insteader me treddin' on his'n." The sore joints of the
regiment creaked as it painfully floundered into position to repulse.

The youth stared. Surely, he thought, this impossible thing was not
about to happen. He waited as if he expected the enemy to suddenly
stop, apologize, and retire bowing. It was all a mistake.

But the firing began somewhere on the regimental line and ripped along
in both directions. The level sheets of flame developed great clouds of
smoke that tumbled and tossed in the mild wind near the ground for a
moment, and then rolled through the ranks as through a gate. The
clouds were tinged an earthlike yellow in the sunrays and in the shadow
were a sorry blue. The flag was sometimes eaten and lost in this mass
of vapor, but more often it projected, sun-touched, resplendent.

Into the youth's eyes there came a look that one can see in the orbs of
a jaded horse. His neck was quivering with nervous weakness and the
muscles of his arms felt numb and bloodless. His hands, too, seemed
large and awkward as if he was wearing invisible mittens. And there
was a great uncertainty about his knee joints.

The words that comrades had uttered previous to the firing began to
recur to him. "Oh, say, this is too much of a good thing! What do
they take us for--why don't they send supports? I didn't come here to
fight the hull damned rebel army."

He began to exaggerate the endurance, the skill, and the valor of those
who were coming. Himself reeling from exhaustion, he was astonished
beyond measure at such persistency. They must be machines of steel. It
was very gloomy struggling against such affairs, wound up perhaps to
fight until sundown.

He slowly lifted his rifle and catching a glimpse of the thickspread
field he blazed at a cantering cluster. He stopped then and began to
peer as best he could through the smoke. He caught changing views of
the ground covered with men who were all running like pursued imps, and
yelling.

To the youth it was an onslaught of redoubtable dragons. He became
like the man who lost his legs at the approach o