ith rage, but although they had lost
thousands in five desperate charges they were compelled to see all five
fail.

Dick, aghast, gazed at Warner through the smoke.

"It's true!" gasped Warner, "we didn't break the trap, Dick. But maybe
they'll succeed off there to the left! Our own commander is there, and
they say that Lee himself has come to the help of Jackson!"

They had been driven back at all points and their own battle was dying,
but off to the left it thundered a while longer, and then as night
suddenly rushed over the field it, too, sank, leaving the hostile forces
on that wing also still face to face, but with the North pushed back.

The coming of night was as sudden to Dick as if it had been the abrupt
dropping of a great dark blanket. In the fury of conflict he had not
noticed the gathering shadows in the west. The dimness around him, if
he had taken time to think about it, he would have ascribed to the vast
columns of dust that eddied and surged about.

Again it was the dust that he felt and remembered. The surging back and
forth of seven score thousand men, the tread of horses and the wheels
of hundreds of cannon raised it in such quantities that it covered the
forest and the armies with a vast whitish curtain. Even in the darkness
it showed dim and ghastly like a funeral veil.

Out of that fatal forest came a dreadful moaning. Dick did not know
whether it was the wind among the leaves or the dying. Once more the
ghosts of the year before walked the fatal field, but the ghosts of this
year would be a far greater company. They had not broken the trap and
Dick knew that the battle was far from over.

It would be renewed in the morning with greater fierceness than ever,
but he was grateful for the present darkness and rest. He and his
comrades had thrown themselves upon the ground, and they felt as if they
could never move again. Their bones did not ache. They merely felt dead
within them.

Dick was roused after a long time. The camp cooks were bringing food
and coffee. He saw a figure lying at his feet as still as death, and he
shoved it with his foot.

"Get up, Frank," he said. "You're not dead."

"No, I'm not, but I'm as good as dead. You just let me finish dying in
peace."

Dick shoved him again and Pennington sat up. When he saw the food and
coffee he suddenly remembered to be hungry. Warner was already eating
and drinking. Off to the left they still heard cannon and rifles,
although the so