Dick's eyes swept fearfully along the gray column of the South, and he
saw the one whom he did not wish to see--at least not there--Harry Kenton
himself, sitting on his bay horse with his friends around him. The two
elderly men must be Colonel Leonidas Talbot and Lieutenant-Colonel Hector
St. Hilaire, and the three youths beside Harry were surely St. Clair,
Langdon and Dalton.

As he looked, Colonel Leonidas Talbot raised his sword, and at the same
time came the sharp command of Colonel Hertford. Rifles and carbines
flashed from either side across the open space, and two streams of
bullets crossed. In an instant the silver of the moonlight was hidden by
clouds of smoke through which flashed the fire from hundreds of rifles
and carbines. All around Dick's ears was the hissing sound of bullets,
like the alarm from serpents.

The fire at close range was so deadly to both sides that holes were
smashed in the mounted ranks. The shrill screams of wounded horses,
far more terrible than the cries of wounded men, struck like knife points
on the drums of Dick's ears. He saw Shepard's horse go down, killed
instantly by a heavy bullet, but the spy himself leaped clear, and
then Dick lost him in the smoke. A bullet grazed his own wrist and he
glanced curiously at the thin trickle of blood that came from it. Yet,
forgetting it the next instant, he waved his saber above his head,
and began to shout to the men.

Rifles and pistols emptied, the Southern horsemen were preparing to
charge. The lifting smoke disclosed a long line of tossing manes and
flashing steel. At either end of the line a shrill trumpet was sounding
the charge, and the Northern bugles were responding with the same