The horse plunged forward at a gallop.

The boy, remembering General Buell's instructions, slipped the letter from his pocket, and in the shelter of the horse's body dropped it to the ground, where he knew it would be lost among the bushes and in the twilight.
"Halt!" was repeated more loudly and sharply than ever.

Then a bullet whizzed by Dick's ear, and a second pierced the heart of his good horse.
He tried to leap clear of the falling animal, and succeeded, but he fell so hard among the bushes that he was stunned for a few moments.

When he revived and stood up he saw the four horsemen in gray looking curiously at him.
"'Twould have been cheaper for you to have stopped when we told you to do it," said one in a whimsical tone.
Dick noticed that the tone was not unkind--it was not the custom to treat prisoners ill in this great war.

He rubbed his left shoulder on which he had fallen and which still pained him a little.
"I didn't stop," he said, "because I didn't know that you would be able to hit either me or my horse in the dusk." "I s'pose from your way of lookin' at it you was right to take the chance, but you've learned now that we Southern men are tol'able good sharpshooters." "I knew it long ago, but what are you doing here, right in the jaws of our army?
They might close on you any minute with a snap.