—"Must I shoot the same time you do, or wait till you shoot?" asked Pete, who seemed less depressed by his surroundings than the others, and mainly eager to get a chance to shoot.
"Don't watch me," cautioned Shorty. "Watch the fellers you are shootin' at, and try to hit 'em. Fire just as soon as you want to after you hear the others."
"I'll bet I'll hit a rebel if anybody does," said Pete with hopeful animation.
They tramped forward a few steps over the spongy ground, and through the dripping bushes.
The musketry fire continued fitfully around the mill in the distance.
They came to the summit of the little rise.
"Hist—halt; lay down, quick," called the watchful Si, in a penetrating voice. "They've loaded agin', and are about to shoot."
He and Shorty were down on their faces as he spoke. The others obeyed more slowly and clumsily. The rebel volley cut the limbs and bushes over their heads, and whistled viciously through the damp air and the darkness.
As little Pete dropped to the ground, his nervous finger touched the trigger and his gun went off up in the air. The others took this as a cue, and banged away as rapidly as they could get their muskets off.
Only Si and Shorty, in dropping, had kept the lay of the ground in view, and without rising they deliberately aimed their pieces whither the volley had come and fired. A suppressed yell of pain came from the other side.