lay still for a few moments,
panting, while the hair on their heads, which had risen up, lay down
again. Quick as had been their passage, fully a dozen ferocious bullets
whined over their heads.

"I hate skirmishers," said Harry. "It's one thing to fire at the mass
of the enemy, and it's another to pick out a man and draw a bead on him."

"I hate 'em, too, especially when they're firing at me!" said Dalton.
"But, Harry, we're doing no good lying here in the bushes, trying to
press ourselves into the earth so the bullets will pass over our heads.
Heavens! What was that?"

"Only the biggest shell that was ever made bursting near us. You know
those Yankee artillerymen were always good, but I think they've improved
since they first saw us trying to cross the road."

"To think of an entire army turning away from its business to shoot at
two fellows like ourselves, who ask nothing but to get away!"

"And it's time we were going. The bushes rise over our heads here.
We must make another dash."

They rose and ran on, but to their alarm the bushes soon ended and they
emerged into a field. Here they came directly into the line of fire
again, and the bullets sang and whistled around them. Once more they
read in invisible but significant letters the sign, "No Thoroughfare,"
and darted back into the wood from which they had just come, while
shells, not aimed at them, but at the armies, shrieked over their heads.

"It's not the plan of fate that we should reach General Lee just yet,"
said Harry.

"The shells and bullets say it isn't. What do you think we ought to do?"

Harry rose up cautiously and began to survey their position. Then he
uttered a cry of joy.

"More of our men are coming," he exclaimed, "and they are coming in
heavy columns! I see their gray jackets and their tanned faces, and
there, too, are the Invincibles. Look, you can see the two colonels,
riding side by side, and just behind them are St. Clair and Langdon!"

Dalton's eyes followed Harry's pointing finger, and he saw. It was a
joyous sight, the masses of their own infantry coming down the road in
perfect order, and their own personal friends not two hundred yards
away. But the Northern artillerymen had seen them too, and they began
to send up the road a heavy fire which made many fall. Ewell's men came
on, unflinching, until they unlimbered their own guns and began to reply
with fierce and rapid volleys.

The two youths sprang from the