that splendid and friendly
rock.

He knew that the Southerners would have sharpshooters and skirmishers
ahead of their main force. They would lie behind stones, trees and brush
and at any moment one of them might pick him off. The Confederate force
seemed to incline to the side of the valley, opposite the slope on which
he lay, and he was hopeful that the fact would keep him hidden until the
masses of his own people could charge into the gap.

It was painful work to flatten his body out behind a stone and lie
there. No trees or bushes grew near enough to give him shade, and the
afternoon sun began to send down upon him direct rays that burned. He
wondered how long it would be until the Union brigades came. It seemed
to him that they were doing a tremendous amount of waiting. Nothing was
to be gained by this long range cannon fire. They must charge home with
the bayonet.

He raised himself a little in order that he might peep over the stone
and see if the charge were coming, and then with a little cry he dropped
back, a fine gray powder stinging his face. A rifle had been fired
across the valley and a bullet chipping the top of the rock sheltering
Dick warned him that he was not the only sharpshooter who lay in an
ambush.

Peeping again from the side of the rock, he saw curls of blue smoke
rising from a point behind a stone just like his own on the other side
of the valley. It was enough to tell him that a Southern sharpshooter
lay there and had marked him for prey.

Dick's anger rose. Why should anyone seek his life, trying to pick him
off as if he were a beast of prey? He had been keeping quiet, disturbing
nobody, merely seeking a chance to escape, when this ruthless rebel had
seen him. He became in his turn hot and fiercely ready to give bullet
for bullet. Smoke floating through the pass and the flash of the cannon,
made him more eager to hit the sharpshooter who was seeking so hard to
hit him.

Watching intently he caught a glimpse of a gray cap showing above the
rock across the valley, and, raising his light rifle, he fired, quick as
a flash. The return shot came at once, and chipped the rock as before,
but he dropped back unhurt, and peeping from the side he could see
nothing. He might or might not have slain his enemy. The gray cap was no
longer visible, and he watched to see if it would reappear.

He heard the sound of a great cannonade before the mouth of the pass,
and he saw his own people advancing i