shby turned.

The bridge was a majestic sight, a roaring pyramid that shot forth
clouds of smoke and sparks in myriads.

"How under the sun did we cross it?" Harry exclaimed.

"We crossed it, that's sure, because here we are," said Sherburne. "I
confess myself that I don't know just how we did it, Harry, but it's
quite certain that the enemy will never cross it. The fire's too strong.
Besides, they'd have our men to face."

Harry looked about, and saw several thousand men drawn up to dispute the
passage, but the Northern troops recognizing its impossibility at that
time, made no attempt. Nevertheless their cannon sent shells curving
over the stream, and the Southern cannon sent curving shells in reply.
But the burning bridge roared louder and the pyramid of flame rose
higher. The rain, which had never ceased to pour in a deluge, merely
seemed to feed it.

"Ah, she's about to go now," exclaimed Sherburne.

The bridge seemed to Harry to rear up before his eyes like a living
thing, and then draw together a mass of burning timbers. The next moment
the whole went with a mighty crash into the river, and the blazing
fragments floated swiftly away on the flood. The deep and rapid
Shenandoah flowed a barrier between the armies of Jackson and Fremont.

"A river can be very beautiful without a bridge, Harry, can't it?" said
a voice beside him.

It was St. Clair, a heavy bandage over his left shoulder, but a smoking
rifle in his right hand, nevertheless.

"I couldn't stand it any longer, Harry," he said. "I had to get up and
join the Invincibles, and you see I'm all right."

Harry was compelled to laugh at the sodden figure, from which the rain
ran in streams. But he admired St. Clair's spirit.

"It was by a hair's breadth, Arthur," he said.

"But we won across, just the same, and now I'm going back to that wagon
to finish my cure. I fancy that we'll now have a rest of six or eight
hours, if General Jackson doesn't think so much time taken from war a
mere frivolity."

The Southern army drew off slowly, but as soon as it was out of sight
the tenacious Northern troops undertook to follow. They attempted to
build a bridge of boats, but the flood was so heavy that they were swept
away. Then Fremont set men to work to rebuild the bridge, which they
could do in twenty-four hours, but Jackson, meanwhile, was using every
one of those precious hours.

CHAPTER XIV. THE DOUBLE BATTLE

The twenty-four hours were a re