mass at bay.  He can almost hear the rebel commands as the re-enforcements pour in.  But now the thunder breaks out anew, rolls in vengeful fury around the western and northern base of the plateau.  The gray lines stagger; the falling men block the steps of the living.  Surely now McDowell is going to do or die.  Yes.  The iron game goes on; the blue lines jostle and crush forward.  They are at the last wall of resistance.  But what is the sound at his very feet?  As Jack looks down in the narrow way between the hill he is on and the plateau on the very edge of the Union line—­in fact, behind it now, for it has moved forward since he took post—­a rushing mass of gray-clad soldiery is moving forward on the dead run.  In one instant the head of the column is where General Franklin rode but an hour or two before.  He looks for Barney.  He can see him nowhere.  He climbs down in haste and discovers his comrade soundly sleeping against the base of the tree.

“Barney, the army is ruined!”

“Is the battle over?”

“Oh, no, no, but it will be in a moment.  Hark, hear that!”

A roar of musketry—­it seemed at their very feet.  Then an outbreak of yells, so sharp, so piercing, so devilish the sound, that the marrow froze in their veins, arose, as if from the whole thicket about them.

“Is it too late to warn General Franklin?” Barney asked, trembling.

“Ah, Barney, we are as bad as traitors; we ought to have seen these rebels before they got near.  If we had done our duty this would never have happened.  Perhaps it is not too late to get back.  Let me go up and see where we can find a way without running into the enemy.”

Reaching his perch again, Jack cast his despairing eyes toward the fatal hill.  It was now clear of smoke, and there wasn’t a regiment left on it.  His heart leaped for an instant, the next it was lead, for the ranks that had disappeared were down on the brow of the hill—­in the valley—­ rushing forward, unresisted, the red and blue of the Union, mixed with the stars and bars of the rebellion; but, worse than all, the ranks of gray were sweeping in overwhelming masses quite behind the lines of blue, cutting them down as a scythe when near the end of the furrow.  To the eastward Sherman still clung desperately to the crests he had won, but Jack saw with agony that, slipping between him and the river, a great wedge of gray was hurrying forward.  His last despairing glance caught a body of jet black horses galloping wildly into the dispersing ranks of blue.  He came down from the tree limp, nerveless, unmanned.

“Well?” Barney asked.

“It’s all over—­we are ruined!”

“The army, you mean?”

“Ah, yes! the army and we too.”

“But what’s going to become of us?”

“I don’t much care what becomes of us—­at least I don’t care what becomes of me!”

“But if we don’t get back to our regiment, they’ll think we’re deserters.”