“Silence in the ranks!” commanded Captain Cullom, and this put a stop to all conversation between them, although Dan had many things that he wanted to say.
After this they rode along in a sort of a fox trot, but Dan noticed that they didn’t take as much pains to go quietly as the squad had done the night before. By the time they got to the bend Dan was certain that the pickets had heard them and taken to the bushes, and when they got around it in plain view of the bridge there was not a sentinel in sight. But before they had gone many feet along the road a voice called out:
“Halt! Who comes there?”
“Draw sabres and revolvers!” shouted the colonel, and the order was repeated by the adjutant, who galloped back along the column and yelled out the command as he went. “Forward! Charge!”
In a second Dan was flying along the road faster than he had ever travelled on horseback before, and in another second the line was thrown into confusion by a discharge of rifles and carbines from the woods on each side of the bridge. The shots were well-aimed, too, for each man was sure of his mark. The colonel and his horse went down, and so did the two men who were carrying Dan and Cale double. The leading four were also badly cut up, and before the major could get up to command in place of his colonel a second discharge followed, which came within an ace of putting the column to a rout. Dan and Cale were on their feet as soon as they struck the ground, the former with his left arm hanging loose and the latter with a bullet-hole through both cheeks.
“I’ve got it now! I’ve got it now!” moaned Dan, and when he tried to raise his arm he saw that the lower part of it was useless.
“And I, too!” yelled Cale. “What’s the matter with my face, Dan? I can’t hardly talk.”
But Dan wasn’t staying around there to tell Cale what was the matter with his face. In fact he didn’t think anything of his brother at all, for his thoughts were wrapped up in his own wound. He gazed at the fallen men who were scattered around him, heard the major issue some rapid orders, and then he, too, fell off his horse. The pickets were evidently going for the officers, and they made short work of them. Dan saw and heard all this and then made a desperate lunge for the bushes, and Cale was close at his heels when he got there.
“Oh, my face!” groaned Cale. “I wish I knew what was the matter with it.”
“Do you think there is nobody killed but yourself?” retorted Dan. “Look at this arm. It don’t hurt me so much, but it feels bruised, and you have got nothing but a bullet-hole through your cheeks.”