el was thin,
bronzed and strong, and he, too, like the other new men from the West,
was eager for battle with the redoubtable Jackson.

"What have you seen, Dick?" he exclaimed. "Is it a mere scouting force
of cavalry, or is Jackson really at hand?"

"I think it's Jackson himself. We saw heavy columns coming up. They were
pressing forward, too, as if they meant to brush aside whatever got in
their way."

"Then we'll show them!" exclaimed Colonel Winchester. "We've only seven
thousand men here on Cedar Run, but Banks, who is in immediate command,
has been stung deeply by his defeats at the hands of Jackson, and he
means a fight to the last ditch. So does everybody else."

Dick, at that moment, the thrill of the gallop gone, was not so
sanguine. The great weight of Jackson's name hung over him like a
sinister menace, and the Union troops on Cedar Run were but seven
thousand. The famous Confederate leader must have at least three times
that number. Were the Union forces, separated into several armies, to
be beaten again in detail? Pope himself should be present with at least
fifty thousand men.

Their horses had been given to an orderly and Dick threw himself upon
the turf to rest a little. All along the creek the Union army, including
his own regiment, was forming in line of battle but his colonel had
not yet called upon him for any duty. Warner and Pennington were also
resting from their long and exciting ride, but the sergeant, who seemed
never to know fatigue, was already at work with his men.

"Listen to those skirmishers," said Dick. "It sounds like the popping of
corn at home on winter evenings, when I was a little boy."

"But a lot more deadly," said Pennington. "I wouldn't like to be a
skirmisher. I don't mind firing into the smoke and the crowd, but I'd
hate to sit down behind a stump or in the grass and pick out the spot on
a man that I meant for my bullet to hit."

"You won't have to do any such work, Frank," said Warner. "Hark to it!
The sergeant was right. We're going to have a battle to-day and a big
one. The popping of your corn, Dick, has become an unbroken sound."

Dick, from the crest of the hillock on which they lay, gazed over
the heads of the men in blue. The skirmishers were showing a hideous
activity. A continuous line of light ran along the front of both armies,
and behind the flash of the Southern firing he saw heavy masses of
infantry emerging from the woods. A deep thrill ran through h