t, they were on the move. The sun was up, shining directly
into their faces. But in spite of the glare, they could still see the
Union works and the flash of guns along it. They were moving faster,
coming to a trot. Officers shouted here and there, trying to slow that
steady advance--why?

Then, drowning out the bugles, the mutter and roar of the artillery,
came the Yell. Their shambling trot quickened. Men were running now,
forming a great wave to lick up at the breastworks. Men in that line did
not know--or care--that they were moving without the promised support on
right and left; they did not hear the disturbed orders of the officers
still striving to slow them, to wrench them back into a battle plan
already too broken to mend. All they cared about now was the field clear
for running, the weapons in their hands, the enemy waiting under the hot
morning sun.

Drew never remembered afterward that splendid useless charge except as
chaos. He could not have told just when they were caught in a murderous
crossfire which poured canister at their undefended flanks. A man went
down before him, stumbling. The scout caught his foot against the
writhing body, pitched head forward, and struck on his bad arm. For a
moment or two the stabbing pain of that made the world red and black.
Then Drew was up on one knee again, just in time to realize foggily that
the Yankees were ripping at their flanks, that their charge was pocketed
by lead and steel, being wiped out. He steadied his gun hand on the
crook of his injured arm, tried to find some target, then fired
feverishly without one, the gun's recoil sending shivers of pain through
his whole shoulder and side.

The first wave of men had great gaps torn in its length. But those
remaining on their feet still ran up the slope, screaming their
defiance. A handful reached the breastworks. Drew saw one man by some
strange fortune scramble to the top of that timber wall, stand balanced
for a moment in triumph to take aim at a target below as if he himself
were invulnerable, and then plunge, as might a diver cleaving a pool,
out of sight on the other side.

Men faltered, the fire was breaking them, crumpling up the lines. All
the Union might was concentrated in a lead-and-canister hail on the
remnants of the brigade, making of the slope a holocaust in which
nothing human could continue to advance.

But new lines of gray-brown came steadily from the woodland, racing,
yelling, steadfast i