It is ten minutes, it seemed an hour, before he is able to get up, and the rest insist on carrying his accoutrements.  Then the wild race is begun again, every instant bringing them nearer the pandemonium of battle.  Suddenly the sharp commands of officers are heard in front and to the left.  Is it the enemy, or is it friends?  The group halts in an agony of doubt.  How can they find out?  Barney takes out his handkerchief and puts it on his gun, which he was careful to go back and recover when Jack was on the bank.  A ray of bright red suddenly flits above the thick tops of the scrub-oaks.

Yes, God be praised, there is the flag of stars, and there are blue uniforms!  With a wild hurrah, drowned in the musketry to the left, they rush forward, are halted by a picket guard, exhibit Sherman’s order, and are directed to the commanding-officer.  That personage has no knowledge of General Hunter’s whereabouts, but Colonel Andrew Porter is just beyond, commanding the brigade.  To him Jack makes known Sherman’s message, and is directed farther to the southwest, the Union right now facing nearly to the east in the execution of McDowell’s admirable flank manoeuvre.

Now among their own, Sherman’s couriers run more peril than when skirting the edge of the battle, for the shells are directed at the line they are pursuing.  They push to the rear and continue southeastward, where Hunter’s headquarters are supposed to be.  But Jack is easy on the score of his mission, since the general, who is nearest the stone bridge, has been apprised, and well knows that the fire which has been coming near his left flank is Sherman’s.  Until, however, he has executed his orders literally Jack won’t be satisfied, and plunges on, the others following, nothing loath.  But it is a way of pain for the lads now.  Every step they come upon the dead and dying.  The air is filled with moaning men, whinnying horses, the hurried movement of stretchers, the solemn solicitude of the hospital corps.  The line of foremost battle is less terrifying, less trying than this inner way of Golgotha, and the four are well-nigh unnerved when they reach a group where the commanding officer has been pointed out.

“General Hunter?” Jack says, addressing an officer with a star.

“My name is Franklin.  General Hunter was wounded an hour ago.  What’s the matter?”

Jack gave his message, and Franklin said, cheerfully:  “That’s good news.  You’re a very brave fellow.  Go a few yards in the rear yonder and you’ll find General McDowell.  He’ll enjoy your message.”

On the hill they halt electrified.

Thick copses of scrub-pine dot the gently sloping sward.  Here and there clumps of tall pines stand in the bare, brown sod as if to guard the young outshoots clustering about them in wanton dispersion.  Cow-paths, marked only by the worn edges of the bushes, run in zigzags across the hillside and up to the plateau.  The remnants of rail fences strew the ground here and there.  The low roof of the farm-house can be seen far back even from the depression, where the lines of blue are now resting a brief, deadly half-hour.