at stated intervals to the party granting it--found himself looking out over a broad white turnpike in a flat country, down which a cloud of dust was all that could be seen of the body of cavalry so lately contending for every inch of ground. Now and again a series of white puffs of smoke from amidst the hillocks on the west told that the battery of the Federals was shelling the woods which their enemy had succeeded in gaining, the shells hurtling high above the heads of their own infantry marching forward resolutely, secure in the fact of being too close for damage. Presently the battery became silent. Their vanguard was getting within range of their own guns, and a second move was in order. The boy watched the flying artillery scurrying across the plain, as he struck down a “dirt-road” which intersected the turnpike, and soon he noticed the puffs of white smoke from another coign of vantage and the bursting of shells still further away. “Them dogs barkin’ again! Waal, I’m glad ter be wide o’ thar mark,” said a familiar voice at his elbow; the speaker was Bixby, a paroled prisoner, too, having been captured further down the hill during the general retreat. Hilary was not ill-pleased to see him at first, especially as something presently happened which made him solicitous for the advice and guidance of an older head than his own. By one of the vicissitudes of war victory suddenly deserted the winning side, and presently here was the erstwhile successful party in full retreat, swarming over the flat country, the battery scurrying along the turnpike with two of its guns missing, captured as they barked with their mouths wide open, so to speak. The hurrying crash and noisy rout went past like the phantasmagoria of a dream, and these two prisoners were presently left quite outside the Federal lines by no act or volition of their own, and yet apparently far enough from Bertley’s squadron, for the pursuit was not pressed, both parties having had for the nonce enough of each other. The first object of the two troopers was to procure food of which they stood sadly in need. They set forth to find the nearest farmhouse, Hilary on his own horse, which in the confusion had not been taken from him when he was disarmed, and Bixby easily caught and mounted a riderless steed that had been in the engagement, but was now cropping the wayside grass.