aist. Then he returned to his errand. Among the thickets he saw but
little. Vicksburg, the Mississippi, and the Union camp disappeared. He
beheld only a soft soil, many bushes and scrub forest. After going a
little distance he was compelled to stop again and consider. It was
curious how one could lose direction in so small a space.

He paused and listened, intending to regain his course through the sense
of hearing. From the north and east came the thunder of the siege guns.
It had grown heavier and was continuous now. Once more he was sorry for
Vicksburg, because the Union gunners were unsurpassed and he was sure
that bombs and shells were raining upon the devoted town.

Now he knew that he must go west by south, and he made his way over
difficult country, crossing ravines, climbing hills, and picking his
path now and then through soft ground, the most exhausting labor of all.
The sun poured down upon him and his uniform dried fast. He had just
crossed one of the ravines and was climbing into the thicket beyond when
a voice asked:

"See any of the Yanks in front?"

Dick's heart stood still, and then all his presence of mind came
back. Not in vain had the kindly colonel warned him of the Southern
sharpshooters in the bush.

"No," he replied. "They seem to be farther up. One of our fellows told
me he saw a whole regiment of them off there to the right."

He plunged deeper into the bush and walked on as if he were among his
own comrades. He realized that his faded uniform with its dye of yellow
mud had caused him to be mistaken for one of Pemberton's men. His
accent, which was Kentuckian and therefore Southern, had helped him
also. He passed three or four other men, bent over, rifle in hand and
watching, and he nodded to them familiarly. In such a crisis he knew
that boldness and ease were his best cards, and he said to one of the
men, with a laugh:

"You'll have to tell us Tennesseeans about all your bayous and creeks.
I've just fallen into one that had no right to be there."

"You Tennesseeans need a bath anyhow," replied the man, chuckling.

"We'd never choose a Mississippi stream for it," said Dick in the
same vein, and passed on leaving the rifleman in high good humor. How
wonderfully these Southerners were like the Northerners! He noticed
presently a half-dozen other sharpshooters in the Confederate butternut,
prowling among the bushes, and through an opening he saw his own people
to the west, but too far