or the fires. And with them always was the wise
Sergeant Whitley, to whom, although inferior in rank, they turned often
and willingly for guidance and advice.

"It's an awful situation," said Pennington; "I knew that war would
furnish horrors, but I didn't expect anything like this."

"But General Grant will never retreat," said Dick. "I feel it in every
bone of me. I've seen his face tonight."

"No, he won't," said the experienced sergeant, "because he's making
every preparation to stay. An' remember, Mr. Pennington, that while this
is pretty bad, worse can happen. Remember, too, that while we can stand
this, we can also stand whatever worse may come. It's goin' to be a
fight to a finish."

Far in the night the occasional guns from the Southern fortress ceased.
The snow was falling no longer, but it lay very deep on the ground, and
the cold was at its height. Along a line of miles the fires burned and
the men crowded about them. But Dick, who had been working on the snowy
plain that was the battlefield, and who had heard many moans there, now
heard none. All who lay in that space were sleeping the common sleep of
death, their bodies frozen stiff and hard under the snow.

Dick, sitting by one of the fires, saw the cold dawn come, and in those
chill hours of nervous exhaustion he lost hope for a moment or two.
How could anybody, no matter how resolute, maintain a siege without
ammunition and without food. But he spoke cheerfully to Pennington and
Warner, who had slept a little and who were just awakening.

The pale and wintry sun showed the defiant Stars and Bars floating
over Donelson, and Dick from his hill could see men moving inside the
earthworks. Certainly the Southern flags had a right to wave defiance at
the besieging army, which was now slowly and painfully rising from the
snow, and lighting the fires anew.

"Well, what's the program today, Dick?" asked Pennington.

"I don't know, but it's quite certain that we won't attempt another
assault. It's hopeless."

"That's true," said Warner, who was standing by, "but we--hark, what was
that?"

The boom of a cannon echoed over the fort and forest, and then another
and another. To the northward they saw thin black spires of smoke under
the horizon.

"It's the fleet! It's the fleet!" cried Warner joyously, "coming up the
Cumberland to our help! Oh, you men of Donelson, we're around you now,
and you'll never shake us off!"

Again came the crash of great gun