h, pitching the boxes to the
clamoring details. All were excited and reckless. The pitching would be
wild, or the catching bad, and occasionally a box would strike a man on
the head or body and knock him down. He would scarcely stop to swear,
but snatch up his precious box and rush off toward his regiment.{80}

"Open out here, let us in," commanded the Lieutenant, striking right
and left with the flat of his sword. It was not a moment for gentle
courtesies. The crowd opened up, and Si and Shorty pushed in near the
wheels.

"Now give us six boxes in a hurry," commanded the Lieutenant.

Si caught the first box, Shorty the second, and before the Lieutenant
was hardly done speaking the rest had theirs, and started back on the
run, accompanied by the Lieutenant. The boxes were very heavy and the
mud was deep, but they went faster than they had ever done, even when
running from the rebels.

"I'm awfully afraid you'll have a time getting across the field there,"
said the Lieutenant, as they came to the edge, and he surveyed the
ground in front doubtfully. "Lieut. Evans says they've moved a battery
up closer, and are sweeping the field with canister."

"We don't care what they're shootn'," said Si resolutely. "We're goin'
back to the regiment with these boxes, or die a-tryin'."

"Go on, then, and God help you," said the Lieutenant. "I'd go with you
if I could do any good."

Si arranged his box for a desperate rush. A blast of canister swept
through, cutting down shrubs, splattering the mud, and shrieking
viciously.

"Let's get as far as we can before they fire again," he shouted, and
plunged forward. Half-way across the field his foot caught in a devil's
shoe-string, and down he went in the mud, with the heavy box driving
him deeper.{81}

Just then another blast of canister hurtled across the field.

[Illustration: A LUCKY FALL 81]

"Golly, it was lucky, after all, that I was tripped," said Si,
rising, stunned and dripping. "That load of canister was meant for me
personally."

Two minutes later he flung the box down before the company, and sank
panting on the ground. The others came up after. Some had teen grazed by
canister, but none seriously wounded. They arrived just in the nick of
time, for the regiment had expended its last cartridge in repulsing the
last assault, and was now desperately fixing bayonets to meet the next
with cold steel. The lids of the boxes were pried off with bayonets,
and the Sergeant