"Well, le's jog along," said Si. "We ought to git there in another hour. There's a big rain comin' up, and we want to git under cover before it strikes us. Forward!--March!" But the rain was nearer that Si thought. It came, as the Spring rains come in the North Georgia mountains--as if Niagara had been shifted into the clouds overhead. The boys were literally washed off the road, and clung to saplings to avoid being carried away into the brush. "I'll fall back and keep the boys together," said Shorty, as soon as an intermission allowed them to speak. "Alright," said Si. "Look out for little Pete." And Si began to forge stolidly ahead. "Goodness, Sarjint, you're not going to travel in such a storm as this," gasped Gid Mackall. "Certainly," Si called back. "Come on. We've got to reach that mill tonight, no matter what happens. You'd might as well be drowned marchin' as standin' still. 'Tain't rainin' no worse further ahead than here. Forward!" [Illustration: CLOSE UP, BOYS. 111] "Close up, boys," said Shorty, taking little Pete's gun and the youngster's hand. "This's only a Spring shower. 'Tain't nothin' to what we had on the Tullyhomy Campaign. There the drops was as big as punkins, and come as thick as the grains on a ear o' corn. Close up, there; dodge the big drops, and go ahead." "Hold on to me tight! Hold on to me!" clamored little Pete. "If you don't I'll be washed away and lost for sure." "Come along, Peter, my son," Shorty assured him. "I hain't never lost no children yit, and I hain't goin' to begin with you." The storm grew more violent every minute, limbs were torn from the trees, and fell with a crash, and torrents rushed down from the mountain side, across the road. Si strode on resolutely, as if the disturbance were nothing more than a Summer zephyr. He waded squarely through the raging streams, turning at times to help the next boy to him, strode over the fallen limbs, and took the dashing downpour with stolid indifference. "Close up, boys! Close up!" shouted Shorty from time to time, "Don't mind a little sprinkle like this. It'll lay the dust, and make marchin' easier. Come along, Peter, my son. I'm not goin' to lose you." Night suddenly came, with pitchy darkness, but Si steadily forged onward. Then the rain ceased as suddenly as it began, but the road was encumbered with fallen timber and swirling races of muddy water. They seemed more uncomfortable even than when the rain was falling. They were now nearing the mill, and the sound of a fitful musketry fire came to their ears. "They've sneaked up in the storm to attack the mill," Si called out to Shorty. "Close up and prepare for action." "Goodness," gasped Gid Mackall, much of whose vim had been soaked out of him by the fearful downpour, and who was oppressed by fatigue, hunger, and the dense blackness of the night in the strange woods. "You don't have to fight when you're wetter'n a drowned rat, and so tired you're ready to drop, do you?"