Behind them they heard the battle swelling anew, but Dick knew that a new force of the foe was coming here, and he felt proud that his own regiment had been moved to meet an attack which would certainly be made with the greatest violence.
"Who are those men down in the wheat-field ?" asked Pennington.
"Our own skirmishers," replied Warner.

"See them running forward, hiding behind the shocks of straw and firing!" The riflemen were busy.

They fired from the shelter of every straw stack in the field, and they stung the new Southern advance, which was already showing its front.

Southern guns now began to search the wheat field.
A shell struck squarely in the center of one of the shocks behind which three Northern skirmishers were kneeling.

Dick saw the straw fly into the air as if picked up by a whirlwind.