.

"Are we winning?" he hastily asked of one man who held up a hand with
three fingers gone and the bones projecting in sharp spikes through
mangled flesh.

"All right, sir; sailing in," was the answer.

"Is the brigade commander all right?" he inquired of another who was
winding a bloody handkerchief around his arm.

"Straight ahead, sir; hurrah for Waldron!" responded the soldier, and
almost in the same instant fell lifeless with a fresh ball through his
head.

"Hurrah for him!" Fitz Hugh answered frantically, plunging on through
the underwood. He found Waldron with Colburn, the two conversing
tranquilly in their saddles amid hissing bullets and dropping branches.

"Move your regiment forward now," the brigade commander was saying;
"but halt it in the edge of the wood."

"Shan't I relieve Gildersleeve if he gets beaten?" asked the
subordinate officer eagerly.

"No. The regiments on the left will help him out. I want your men and
Peck's for the fight on top of the hill. Of course the rebels will try
to retake it; then I shall call for you."

Fitz Hugh now approached and said, "Colonel, the Seventh has attacked
in force."

"Good!" answered Waldron, with that sweet smile of his which thanked
people who brought him pleasant news. "I thought I heard his fire.
Gahogan will be on their right rear in ten minutes. Then we shall get
the ridge. Ride back now to Major Bradley, and tell him to bring his
Napoleons through the wood, and set two of them to shelling the enemy's
centre. Tell him my idea is to amuse them, and keep them from changing
front."

Again Fitz Hugh galloped off as before on a comfortably safe errand,
safer at all events than many errands of that day. "This man is sparing
my life," he said to himself. "Would to God I knew how to spare his!"

He found Bradley lunching on a gun caisson, and delivered his orders.
"Something to do at last, eh?" laughed the rosy-cheeked youngster. "The
smallest favors thankfully received. Won't you take a bite of rebel
chicken, Captain? This rebellion must be put down. No? Well, tell the
Colonel I am moving on, and John Brown's soul not far ahead."

When Fitz Hugh returned to Waldron he found him outside of the wood, at
the base of the long incline which rose into the rebel position. About
the slope were scattered prostrate forms, most numerous near the
bottom, some crawling slowly rearward, some quiescent. Under the brow
of the ridge, decimated and broken into a mer