A bullet came so nigh Si's face that it seemed to burn him, and then he heard it strike. Jim Humphreys fell without a groan—a bullet through his brain.
"Don't mind that. Forward, boys," shouted Si. "Here's the end of the abatis."
Gid Mackall fell, and Harry Joslyn turned to help him.
"Don't mind him. Come on," Si called over his shoulder, as he rushed in the clear place, just at the edge of the shallow ditch in front of the works. "Everybody this way."
All that was left of the regiment was now through the abatis. The fog suddenly lifted, and showed the combatants face to face, with only the ditch and the bank of earth between them. The sight was so startling that both sides paused for an instant.
"Forward, 200th Ind.! Rally on your colors!" rang out the clear, sweet, penetrating voice of the Colonel, as he snatched the colors from the hand of the third man who had borne them since the regiment moved forward, and sprang up the side of the works.
Of the pandemonium that reigned inside the rebel works for the next few minutes Si only recollected seeing the Orderly-Sergeant, bareheaded, and with bayonet fixed, leap down from the bank and transfix a man who tried to snatch the flag from the Colonel's hand. Si arrived just in time to shoot the rebel officer who was striking at the Orderly with his sword, while Shorty came up, knocking down a winrow of men with his gun swung by the butt as a club, to rescue Si from three rebels who were trying to bayonet him.
All at once the entire rebel line broke and ran down the hill in a wave of dingy brown, while another wave of blue rolled over the works to the right and left of the 200th Ind.