Sergeant Whitley, after whispering a little with Colonel Winchester,
had stolen off toward the right with fifty picked riflemen. When they
reached the verge of the open space that lay between the two sides they
threw themselves down in the thick, tall grass. Neither Dick nor Warner
could see them now. They beheld only the stems of the grass waving as if
under a gentle wind. But Dick knew that the rippling movement marked the
passage of the riflemen.

Meanwhile the attack in their front was growing hotter. At least six
or seven hundred sharpshooters were sending a fire which would have
annihilated them if it had not been for the trees. As it was, fragments
of bark, twigs, and leaves showered about them. The whistling of the
bullets and their chugging as they struck the trees made a continuous
sinister note.

The Union men were not silent under this fire. Their own rifles were
replying fast, but Colonel Winchester continually urged them to take aim,
and, while death and wounds were inflicted on the Union ranks, the
Southern were suffering in the same manner.

Dick turned his eyes toward the right flank, where the fifty picked
riflemen, Sergeant Whitley at their head, were crawling through the tall
grass. He knew that they were making toward a little corner of the
forest, thrust farther forward than the rest, and presently when the
rippling in the grass ceased he was sure that they had reached it.
Then the fifty rifles cracked together and the Southern flank was swept
by fifty well-aimed bullets. Lying in their covert, Whitley's men
reloaded their breech-loading rifles and again sent in a deadly fire.

The main Northern force redoubled its efforts at the same time. The men