Beauregard's army is not goin' to sweep us off the face of the earth." His words brought cheer to Dick, but it lasted only a moment.

He was to see many dark days, but this perhaps was the darkest of his life.

His heart beat painfully and his face was a brown mask of mingled dust, sweat, and burned gunpowder.

The thunder of the Southern cannon behind them filled him with humiliation.

Every bone in him ached after such fierce exertion, and his eyes were dim with the flare of cannon and rifles and the rolling clouds of dust.