Action followed swift upon thought.  He curved about in the woods and then ran rapidly toward the point where the fire seemed thinnest.  He did not check his pace until he had gone at least a mile.  Then he paused to see if he could tell how the battle was going.  Its roar seemed louder than ever in his ears, and in front of him was a vast red line, which extended an unseen distance through the forest.  Now and then the wild and thrilling rebel yell rose above the roar of cannon and the crash of rifles.

Dick saw with a sinking of the heart—­and yet he had known that it would be so—­that the red line of flame had moved deeper into the heart of the Northern camp.  It had passed the Northern outposts and, at many points, it had swept over the Northern center.  He feared that there was but a huddled and confused mass beyond it.

He saw something lying at his feet.  It was a Confederate military cloak which some officer had cast off as he rushed to the charge.  He picked it up, threw it about his own shoulders, and then tossed away his cap.  If he fell in with Confederate troops they would not know him from one of their own, and it was no time now to hold cross-examinations.

He took a wide curve, and, after another mile, came to a hillock, upon which he stood a little while, panting.  Again he was appalled at the sight he beheld.  Bull Run and Donelson were small beside this.  Here eighty thousand men were locked fast in furious conflict.  Raw and undisciplined many of these farmer lads of the west and south were, but in battle they showed a courage and tenacity not surpassed by the best trained troops that ever lived.

The floating smoke reached Dick where he stood and stung his eyes, and a powerful odor of burned gunpowder assailed his nostrils.  But neither sight nor odors held him back.  Instead, they drew him on with overwhelming force.  He must rejoin his own and do his best however little it counted in the whole.

It was now well on into the morning of a brilliant and hot Sunday.  He did not know it, but the combat was raging fiercest then around the little church, which should have been sacred.  Drawing a deep breath of an air which was shot with fire and smoke, and which was hot to his lungs, Dick began to run again.  Almost before he noticed it he was running by the side of a Southern regiment which had been ordered to veer about and attack some new point in the Northern line.  Keeping his presence of mind he shouted with them as they rushed on, and presently dropped away from them in the smoke.

He was conscious now of a new danger.  Twigs and bits of bark began to rain down upon him, and he heard the unpleasant whistle of bullets over his head.  They were the bullets of his own people, seeking to repel the Southern charge.  A minute later a huge shell burst near him, covering him with flying earth.  At first he thought he had been hit by fragments of the shell, but when he shook himself he found that he was all right.