creaming
with pain and fright, rushed into the dense undergrowth and were
caught by the trailing vines and thrown down. Some of the cavalrymen
themselves were knocked out of the saddle by the fleeing horses, but
they quickly regained their seats.

A second discharge from many guns sent another rain equally as deadly
upon the hillock and its vicinity. More men and horses fell, and a
scene of wild confusion followed. Attempting to turn about and escape
from that spot of death, the cannon crashed together. There was not
room for all the men and horses and guns. Most of them were compelled
to plunge into the undergrowth and struggle desperately through it for
shelter.

But Harry did not forget the two generals who were worth so much to the
South. It would be fate's bitterest irony if Jackson and Stuart were
killed in a small flanking movement, when, as was obvious to everyone,
a battle of the first magnitude was just before them. And yet, while
fragments of steel, hot and hissing, fell all around them, Jackson and
Stuart and all the members of their staffs escaped without hurt.

The deadly fire followed them as they retreated, but the two generals
rode on, unharmed. Harry and Dalton breathed deep sighs of relief when
they were out of range.

"If a bullet had gone through my left side," said Dalton, "it wouldn't
have come near my heart."

"Why not?"

"Because my heart was in my mouth. In fact, I don't think it has gone
back yet to its natural place. The Yankees certainly have the guns."

"And the gunners who know how to use them. But doesn't it feel good,
George, to be back on the plank road?"

"It does. I'll take my chance in open battle, but when I'm tangled up
among bushes and vines and briars, I do hate to have a hundred-pound
shell fired from an invisible gun burst suddenly on the top of my head.
What's all that firing off there to the left and farther on?"

"It means that some of our people have got deeper into the Wilderness
than we have, and are feeling out Hooker. I imagine we won't go much
farther. Look how the night's dropping down. I'd hate to pass a night
alone in such a place as this Wilderness. It would be like sleeping in
a graveyard."

"You won't have to spend the night alone here. I wish I was as sure of
Heaven as that. You'll have something like two hundred thousand near
neighbors."

The sun set and darkness swept over the Wilderness, but it was still
lighted at many points