"Stoop low and make a dash. Here goes!"
Bent almost double, they made a hop, skip and jump and were in the bushes on the other side, where they lay still for a few moments, panting, while the hair on their heads, which had risen up, lay down again. Quick as had been their passage, fully a dozen ferocious bullets whined over their heads.
"I hate skirmishers," said Harry. "It's one thing to fire at the mass of the enemy, and it's another to pick out a man and draw a bead on him."
"I hate 'em, too, especially when they're firing at me!" said Dalton. "But, Harry, we're doing no good lying here in the bushes, trying to press ourselves into the earth so the bullets will pass over our heads. Heavens! What was that?"
"Only the biggest shell that was ever made bursting near us. You know those Yankee artillerymen were always good, but I think they've improved since they first saw us trying to cross the road."
"To think of an entire army turning away from its business to shoot at two fellows like ourselves, who ask nothing but to get away!"
"And it's time we were going. The bushes rise over our heads here. We must make another dash."
They rose and ran on, but to their alarm the bushes soon ended and they emerged into a field. Here they came directly into the line of fire again, and the bullets sang and whistled around them. Once more they read in invisible but significant letters the sign, "No Thoroughfare," and darted back into the wood from which they had just come, while shells, not aimed at them, but at the armies, shrieked over their heads.
"It's not the plan of fate that we should reach General Lee just yet," said Harry.
"The shells and bullets say it isn't. What do you think we ought to do?"