Ned saw a soldier with a Minie ball sticking in the centre of his forehead, the blood oozing from the round, clean-cut hole beside the lead. He was walking steadily backward, loading and firing with incredible rapidity. The company halted behind the troops held in reserve, but the man with the ball in his forehead refused to go to the rear. He wouldn't believe that he was seriously hurt. He jokingly asked a comrade to dig the ball out. He did so, and the fellow dropped in his tracks, the blood gushing from the wound in a stream. The uncanny sight had sickened Ned. He looked at his hand and it was trembling like a leaf. And this division was charging up that awful hill again. Ned saw a private soldier who belonged to one of its regiments deliberately walk across the field alone and join his comrades as if nothing of importance were going on. And yet the bullets were whistling so thickly that their "Zip! Zip!" on the ground kept the air filled with flying dirt and tufts of grass--a veritable hail of lead through which a sparrow apparently couldn't fly. The fellow was certainly a fool! No man with a grain of sense would do such a thing _alone_--maybe with a crowd of cheering men, but only a maniac _could_ do it alone--Ned was sure of that. A shell smashed through the top of a tree, clipped its trunk in two and down it came with a crash that sent the men scampering. A solid shot came bounding leisurely down the hill and rolled into the woods. A man just in front put out his foot playfully to stop it and it broke his leg. The shriek of shell and the whistle of lead increased in terrifying roar each moment and Ned felt a queer sensation in his chest--a sort of shortness of breath. In a moment he was going to bolt for the rear! He felt it in his bones and saw no way to stop it. He lifted his eyes piteously toward the Colonel who sat erect in his saddle stroking the neck of a restless horse with his left hand. The veteran saw the boy's terror under his trial of fire and his heart went out to him in a wave of fatherly sympathy. He rode quickly up to Ned: "Won't you hold my horse's bridle a minute, young man, while I use my glasses?" he asked coolly. Ned's trembling hand caught the reins as a drowning man a straw. The act steadied his shaking nerves. As the Colonel slowly lowered his glasses Ned cried through chattering teeth: "D-d-d-on't y-you think--I-I-I--am d-d-doing p-pretty well, C-colonel, f-f-f-for my f-f-ffirst battle?" The Colonel nodded encouragingly: "Very well, my boy. It's a nasty situation. You'll make a good soldier." And then the order to charge!