But Dick meanwhile saw increasing numbers of men there.

They were beyond the line of battle and were not obscured by the clouds of smoke.

As he stared he saw a weazened figure under an enormous, broad-brimmed hat, and, although he could not discern the face at the distance, he knew that it was Slade, come with a new and perhaps larger body of riflemen to burn away the extreme left flank of the Union force.
As the colonel and the sergeant crawled back Dick told them what he had seen, and they recognized at once the imminence of the danger.

Colonel Winchester looked at the great columns of fire and smoke in front of him.

He did not know when the main attack would sweep down upon them again, but he took his resolution at once.
He ordered his men to wheel about, and, using Slade's own tactics, to creep forward with their rifles.