d touched the boy's arm. "Look
here, Billy! We're going into battle in a minute, and you want to be
there, don't you? The lieutenant's right--that oak tree surely will get
in your way! Let's see how far you can throw it. There's plenty more
saplings in the woods!"

"Let him alone, Gold," said the lieutenant sharply. "Do as I order you,
Billy Maydew!"

Billy rose, eighteen years old, and six feet tall. "If it's jest the
same to you, lieutenant," he said politely, "I'll break it into bits
first. Thar are time when I jest hone to feel my hands on somethin'
brittle!" He put the thick sapling across his knee like a sword, broke
it in twain, broke in their turn the two halves, and tossed the four
pieces over the fence. "Thar, now! It's did." Moving back to Allan's
side, he threw himself down upon the grass. "When's this hell-fired
fightin' goin' to begin? I don't ask anything better, jest at this
minute, than to encounter a rattler!"

The sound ahead swelled suddenly into loud and continuous firing.
Apparently Evans had met the turning column. _Fall in, men, fall in!_

The First Brigade rose to its feet, left the friendly fence, and found
itself upon a stretch of road, in a dust cloud that neatly capped all
previous ills. At some distance rose the low hill, covered, upon this
side, by a second growth of pines. "That's the Henry Hill," said the
guide with the 65th. "The house just this side is the Lewis
house--'Portici,' they call it. The top of the hill is a kind of
plateau, with deep gulleys across it. Nearly in the middle is the Widow
Henry's house, and beyond it the house of the free negro Robinson.
Chinn's house is on the other side, near Chinn's Branch. It's called the
Henry Hill, and Mrs. Henry is old and bedridden. I don't know what
she'll do, anyway! The hill's most level on top, as I said, but beyond
the Henry House it falls right down, quite steep, to the Warrenton
turnpike. Across that there's marshy ground, and Young's Branch, with
the Stone House upon it, and beyond the branch there's Mathews Hill,
just around the branch. Yes, sir, this back side's wooded, but you see
the cleared ground when you get on top."

A bowshot from the wood, the head of the column was met by a second
courier, a boy from the Alabama River, riding like Jehu, pale with
excitement. "When you get to the top of the hill you'll see! They're
thicker than bees from a sweet gum--they're thicker than bolls in a
cotton-field! They've got three