n young Pennington was taken out of the ranks and attached
to the staff of Colonel Winchester as an orderly. He was well educated,
already a fine campaigner, and beyond a doubt he would prove extremely
useful.

They steamed the entire day without interruption. Now and then the river
narrowed and they ran between high banks. The scenery became romantic
and beautiful, but always wild. The river, deep at any time, was now
swollen fifteen feet more by floods on its upper courses, and the water
always lapped at the base of the forest.

Dick and Pennington, standing side by side, saw the second sun set over
their voyage, and it was as wild and lonely as the first. There was a
yellow river again, and hills covered with a bare forest. Heavy gray
clouds trooped across the sky, and the sun was lost among them before it
sank behind the hills in the west.

Dick and Pennington, wrapped in their blankets and overcoats, slept upon
the deck that night, with scores of others strewed about them. They were
awakened after eleven o'clock by a sputter of rifle shots. Dick sat up
in a daze and heard a bullet hum by his ear. Then he heard a powerful
voice shouting: "Down! Down, all of you! It's only some skirmishers in
the woods!" Then a cannon on one of the armor clads thundered, and
a shell ripped its way through the underbrush on the west bank. Many
exclamations were uttered by the half-awakened lads.

"What is it? Has an army attacked us?"

"Are we before the fort and under fire?"

"Take your foot off me, you big buffalo!"

It was Colonel Winchester who had commanded them to keep down, but Dick,
a staff officer, knew that it did not apply to him. Instead he sprang
erect and assisted the senior officers in compelling the others to lie
flat upon the decks. He saw several flashes of fire in the undergrowth,
but he had logic enough to know that it could only be a small Southern
band. Three or four more shells raked the woods, and then there was no
reply.

The boats steamed steadily on. Only one or two of the young soldiers
had been hurt and they but lightly. All rolled themselves again in their
blankets and coats and went back to sleep.

The second awakening was about half way between midnight and dawn.
Something cold was continually dropping on Dick's face and he awoke to
find hundreds of sheeted and silent white forms lying motionless upon
the deck. Snow was falling swiftly out of a dark sky, and the fleet
was moving slowly. In th