There was a
yellow river again, and hills covered with a bare forest. Heavy gray
clouds trooped across the sky, and the sun was lost among them before it
sank behind the hills in the west.
Dick and Pennington, wrapped in their blankets and overcoats, slept upon
the deck that night, with scores of others strewed about them. They
were awakened after eleven o'clock by a sputter of rifle shots. Dick
sat up in a daze and heard a bullet hum by his ear. Then he heard a
powerful voice shouting: "Down! Down, all of you! It's only some
skirmishers in the woods!" Then a cannon on one of the armor clads
thundered, and a shell ripped its way through the underbrush on the
west bank. Many exclamations were uttered by the half-awakened lads.
"What is it? Has an army attacked us?"
"Are we before the fort and under fire?"
"Take your foot off me, you big buffalo!"
It was Colonel Winchester who had commanded them to keep down, but Dick,
a staff officer, knew that it did not apply to him. Instead he sprang
erect and assisted the senior officers in compelling the others to lie
flat upon the decks. He saw several flashes of fire in the undergrowth,
but he had logic enough to know that it could only be a small Southern
band. Three or four more shells raked the woods, and then there was no
reply.
The boats steamed steadily on. Only one or two of the young soldiers
had been hurt and they but lightly. All rolled themselves again in
their blankets and coats and went back to sleep.
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