"Good-by," shrilled Virgie in her childish treble. "Good-by, Colonel! Don't get hurt."
"Daddy!" she cried, as they crouched down in their hiding place behind the wall. "Is there going to be a—a battle?"
"Only a little one. But you won't be afraid."
A rattle of approaching wheels came from down the road, the shock of steel tires striking viciously against the stones, the cries and oaths of the drivers urging the horses forward.
"Look!" cried Cary, springing to his feet in spite of the danger in which his gray uniform placed him. "Here come the field pieces. In a minute now the dogs will begin to bark."
With a roar of wheels and a clash of harness and accouterments the guns rushed by while the child stared and stared, her big eyes almost starting out of her face.
"The dogs!" she said in wonder. "There wasn't a single dog there!"
"Another kind of dog," her father said with a meaning look. "And their teeth are very long. Ah! There they go! Over yonder on the hill—in the edge of the woods. The Yankee dogs are barking. Now listen for the answer."
Together they listened, father and daughter, with straining ears—listened for the defiant reply of those men who, being Americans, were never beaten until hunger and superior numbers forced them to the wall.
"Boom!" A great, ear-filling sound crashed over the hills and rolled, echoing, through the woods.