ut as the roar died it was succeeded by the rapid,
stinging fire of rifles. The Mississippians in their pits and cellars
near the bank of the river were sending a hail of bullets upon the
bridge builders.

The rest of the Southern army stood by and watched. Harry knew that
Lee and Jackson would make their chief defense on the ridges, but the
Mississippians were there to keep the enemy from being too forward.
So deadly were their rifles that every workman fled off the bridge to
the Union shore, save those who were struck down upon it, falling into
the water.

Then came a pause, a period of intense waiting, short, but seemingly
long, even to the veteran generals, after which the gallant builders,
who truly deserved the name of the bravest of the brave, ventured again
upon the bridge in the face of those terrible Mississippi rifles.
A blast of death again blew upon them. Bullets in hundreds struck upon
bodies or rattled on timbers. The workmen could not live in the face of
such a fire, and those who had not been slain retreated again to their
own side of the stream. A third time the heroic bridge builders
returned to their work, and a third time they were driven back by the
deadly Mississippi hail. Harry felt pity for them.

"I never saw anything braver," he said to Dalton.

"Nor did I, Harry, nor anything more useless. The bridge builders never
had a chance before the rifles. But now their supports, which should
have been there all the time, are coming up."

Heavy columns of Union riflemen moved forward to the edge of the river
and replied to the Mississippians. But the Southerners, in the shelter
of the cellars and pits, held their ground. But few of them were hit
and they kept up that deadly hail which swept the uncompleted bridge
clear of every workman who attempted to go upon it.

The rapid fire of the rifles crashed up and down both sides of the river,
two sheets of flame seeming to reach out as if they would meet each
other. The wind that had driven away the fog also carried off the smoke,
and the river still gleamed like steel between. Then, as the rifle fire
died again, there was another silence for a while.

"It will take more than rifles," said Harry, "to drive out those
intrenched Mississippians."

"So it will, Harry," said Dalton, who was watching through glasses,
"and here it comes. Their great batteries are about to open."

The next instant the whole earth seemed to be shaken by the ro