“Dick,” said Colonel Winchester the next morning, “I think you are the best scout and trailer among my young officers. Mr. Pennington, you are probably the best on the plains, and I've no doubt, Warner, that you would do well in the mountains, but for the hills, forests and rivers I'll have to choose Dick. I've another errand for you, my boy. You're to go on foot, and you're to take this dispatch to Admiral Porter, who commands the iron-clads in the river near the city. Conceal it carefully about you, but I anticipate no great danger for you, as Vicksburg is pretty well surrounded by our forces.”  
The dispatch was written on thin, oiled paper. Dick hid it away in the lining of his coat and departed upon another important mission, full of pride that he should be chosen for it. He had all the passwords and carried two good pistols in his belt. Rich in experience, he felt able to care for himself, even should the peril be greater than Colonel Winchester had expected.
 
The sun was not far above the horizon but it was warm and brilliant, and it lighted up the earth, throwing a golden glow over the plateau of Vicksburg, the great maze of ravines and thickets and the many waters.
 
He passed along the lines, walking rapidly southward, and saw more than one officer of his acquaintance. Hertford's cavalry were in a field, and the colonel himself sat on a portion of the rail fence that had enclosed it. He hailed the lad pleasantly.
 
“Into the forest again, Dick,” he said.
 
“Not this time, sir,” Dick replied. “It's just a little trip, down the river.”
 
“Success to the trip and a speedy return.”
 
Dick nodded and walked on. He was quite sure that his dispatch was an order from Grant for Porter to come up the stream and join in a general attack which everybody felt sure was planned for an early date.
 
As he passed through the regiments and brigades he received much good-humored chaff. The great war of America differed widely from the great wars of Europe. The officers and men were more nearly on a plane of equality. The vast majority of them had been volunteers in the beginning and perhaps this feeling of comradeship made them fight all the better. North and South were alike in it.
 
“Which way, sonny?” called a voice from a group. “You don't find the fighting down there. It's back toward Vicksburg.”
 
Dick nodded and smiled.
 
“Maybe he's out walking for exercise. These officers ride too much.”
 
Dick walked on with a steady swinging step. He regarded the sunbrowned, careless youths with the genuine affection of a brother. Many of them were as young as he or younger, but they were now veterans of battle and march. Napoleon's soldiers themselves could not have boasted of more experience than they.
 
He was coming to the last link in the steel chain, and the colonel of a regiment, an old man, warned him to be careful as he approached the river.
 
“Southern sharpshooters are among the ravines and thickets,” he said. “They fired on our lads about dawn and then escaped easily in the thick cover.”
 
“Thank you, sir,” said Dick, “I'll be on my guard.” Yet he did not feel the presence of danger. Youth perhaps becomes more easily hardened in war than middle age, or perhaps it thinks less of consequences. The union cannon, many of great weight and power, had begun already to fire upon Vicksburg. Huge shells and shot were rained upon the city. Pemberton had two hundred guns facing the river and the army, but to spare his ammunition they made little reply.
 
Dick looked back now and then. He saw flakes of fire on the northern horizon, puffs of smoke and the curving shells. He felt that Vicksburg was no pleasant place to be in just now, and yet it must be full of civilians, many of them women and children. He was sorry for them. It was Dick's nature to see both sides of a quarrel. He could never hate the Southerners, because they saw one way and he another.
 
It was a passing emotion. It was too fine a morning for youth to grieve. At the distance the plumes of smoke made by the shells became decorative rather than deadly. From a crest he saw upon the plateau of Vicksburg and even discerned the dim outline of houses. Looking the other way, he saw the smoke of the iron-clads down the river, and he also caught glimpses of the Mississippi, gold in the morning sun over its vast breadth.
 
Then he entered the thickets, and, bearing in mind the kindly warning of the old colonel, proceeded slowly and with extreme caution. The Southerners knew every inch of the ground here and he knew none. He came to a ravine and to his dismay found that a considerable stream was flowing through it toward the bayou. It was yellow water, and he thought he might find a tree, fallen across the stream, which would serve him as a foot log, but a hunt of a few minutes disclosed none, and, hesitating no longer, he prepared to wade.
 
He put his belt with the pistols in it around his neck and stepped in boldly. His feet sank in the mud. The water rose to his knees and then to his waist. It was, in truth, deeper than he had expected—one could never tell about these yellow, opaque streams. He took another step and plunged into a hole up to his shoulders.
 
Angry that he should be wet through and through, and with such muddy water too, he crossed the stream.
 
He looked down with dismay at his uniform. The sun would soon dry it, but until he got a chance to clean it, it would remain discolored and yellow, like the jeans clothes which the poorer farmers of the South often wore. And yet the accident that he bemoaned, the bath in water thick with mud, was to prove his salvation.
 
Dick shook himself like a big dog, throwing off as much of the water as he could. He had kept his pistols dry and he rebuckled his belt around his waist. Then he returned to his errand. Among the thickets he saw but little. Vicksburg, the Mississippi, and the union camp disappeared. He beheld only a soft soil, many bushes and scrub forest. After going a little distance he was compelled to stop again and consider. It was curious how one could lose direction in so small a space.
 
He paused and listened, intending to regain his course through the sense of hearing. From the north and east came the thunder of the siege guns. It had grown heavier and was continuous now. Once more he was sorry for Vicksburg, because the union gunners were unsurpassed and he was sure that bombs and shells were raining upon the devoted town.
 
Now he knew that he must go west by south, and he made his way over difficult country, crossing ravines, climbing hills, and picking his path now and then through soft ground, the most exhausting labor of all. The sun poured down upon him and his uniform dried fast. He had just crossed one of the ravines and was climbing into the thicket beyond when a voice asked:
 
“See any of the Yanks in front?”
 
Dick's heart stood still, and then all his presence of mind came back. Not in vain had the kindly colonel warned him of the Southern sharpshooters in the bush.
 
“No,” he replied. “They seem to be farther up. One of our fellows told me he saw a whole regiment of them off there to the right.”
 
He plunged deeper into the bush and walked on as if he were among his own comrades. He realized that his faded uniform with its dye of yellow mud had caused him to be mistaken for one of Pemberton's men. His accent, which was Kentuckian and therefore Southern, had helped him also. He passed three or four other men, bent over, rifle in hand and watching, and he nodded to them familiarly. In such a crisis he knew that boldness and ease were his best cards, and he said to one of the men, with a laugh:
 
“You'll have to tell us Tennesseeans about all your bayous and creeks. I've just fallen into one that had no right to be there.”
 
“You Tennesseeans need a bath anyhow,” replied the man, chuckling.
 
“We'd never choose a Mississippi stream for it,” said Dick in the same vein, and passed on leaving the rifleman in high good humor. How wonderfully these Southerners were like the Northerners! He noticed presently a half-dozen other sharpshooters in the Confederate butternut, prowling among the bushes, and through an opening he saw his own people to the west, but too far away to be reached by anything but artillery. The slow, deep music of the Northern guns came steadily to his ear, but their fire was always turned toward Vicksburg.
 
Dick knew that his position was extremely critical. Perhaps it was growing more so all the while, but he was never cooler. A quiet lad, he always rose wonderfully to an emergency. He was quite sure that he was among Mississippi troops, and they could not possibly know all the soldiers from the other states gathered for the defense of Vicksburg. He did not differ from those around him in any respect, except that he did not carry a rifle.
 
He paused and looked back thoughtfully at the distant union troops.
 
“Can you tell me how they're posted?” he said to a tall, thin middle-aged man who had a chew of tobacco in his cheek. “I carry dispatches to General Pemberton, and the more information I can give him the better.”
 
“Yes, I kin tell you,” replied the man, somewhat flattered. “They're posted everywhere. What, with their army and them boats of theirs in the river, they've got a high fence around us, all staked and ridered.”
 
“It doesn't take any more work to tear a fence down than it does to build it up.”
 
“I reckon you're right thar, stranger. But was you at Champion Hill?”
 
“No, I missed that.”
 
“Then it was a good thing for you that you did. I didn't set much store by the Yanks when this war began. One good Southerner could whip five of 'em any time, our rip-roarin', fire-eatin' speech-makers said. I knowed then, too, that they was right, but I was up thar in Kentucky a while, an' after Donelson I reckoned that four was about as many as I wanted to tackle all to oncet. Then thar was Shiloh, an' I kinder had a thought that if three of 'em jumped on me at one time I'd hev my hands purty full to lick 'em. Then come Corinth, an,' reasonin' with myself, I said I wouldn't take on more'n two Yanks at the same time. An' now, since I've been at Champion Hill, I know that the Yank is a pow'ful good fighter, an' I reckon one to one jest about suits me, an' even then I'd like to have a leetle advantage in the draw.”
 
“I feel that way about it, too. The Yankees are going to make a heap of trouble for us here. But I must be going. What's the best path into Vicksburg?”
 
“See that little openin' in the bushes. Follow it. Jest over the hill you'll run into a passel of our fellers, but pay no 'tention to 'em. If they ask you who you are an' whar you're boun' tell 'em to go straight to blazes, while you go to Vicksburg.”
 
“Thank you,” said Dick, “I like to meet an obliging and polite man like you. It helps even in war.”
 
“Don't mention it. When I wuz a little shaver my ma told me always to mind my manners, an' when I didn't she whaled the life out of me. An', do you know, stranger, she's just a leetle, withered old woman, but if she could 'pear here right now I'd be willin' to set down right in these bushes an' say, 'Ma, take up that stick over thar an' beat me across the shoulders an' back with it as hard as you kin.' I'd feel good all over.”
 
“I believe you,” said Dick, who thought of his own mother.
 
He followed the indicated path until he was out of sight of everybody, and then he plunged into the bushes and marsh toward the river. When he was well hidden he stopped and considered.
 
It was quite evident that he had wandered from the right road, but it was no easy task to get back into it. There was an unconscious Confederate cordon about him and he must pass through it somewhere. He moved farther toward the river, but only went deeper into the swamp.
 
He turned to the south and soon reached firm ground, but he heard Confederate pickets talking in front of him. Then he caught glimpses of two or three men watching among the trees, and he lay down in a clump of bushes. He might pass them as he had passed the others, but he thought it wiser not to take the risk.
 
He was willing also to rest a little, as he had done a lot of hard walking. His clothing was now dry, and the mud had dried upon it.
 
He turned aside into one of the deep ravines and then into a smaller one leading from it. The bushes were dense there and he lay down among them, so completely hidden that he was invisible ten feet away. Here he still heard the mutter of the guns, which came in a long, droning sound, and occasionally a rifle cracked at some point closer by. The union army was still busy and he felt a few moments of despondency. His dispatch undoubtedly was of great importance, and yet he was not able to deliver it. It was highly probable that for precaution's sake other messengers bore the same dispatch, but he was anxious to arrive with his nevertheless, and he wanted, too, to arrive first. The last now seemed impossible and the first improbable.
 
The crackling fire came nearer. Owing to the lack of percussion caps, Pemberton had ordered his men to use their rifles sparingly, but evidently a considerable body of sharpshooters near Dick were attempting a flanking movement of some kind, and meant to carry it out with bullets. He was impatient to see, but prudence kept him in his covert, a prudence that was soon justified, as presently he heard voices very near him and then the sound of footsteps.
 
He rose up a little and saw several hundred Confederate soldiers passing on the slopes not more than a hundred yards away. They went south of him, and he recognized with growing alarm that the wall across his way was growing higher. When they were gone and he could no longer hear their tread among the bushes he slipped from his hiding place and went directly toward Vicksburg. Being within an iron ring he thought that perhaps he would be safer somewhere near the center. He might make his way without much trouble through the vast confused crowd in Vicksburg, and then in the night go down the river's edge and to the fleet.
 
It was a daring idea, so very daring that it appealed to the strain of high adventure in the lad. He was encouraged, too, by his earlier and easy success in passing among the Confederate soldiers. But in order not to appear reckless and to satisfy his own conscience he tried once more for the way to the south. But the soldiers entirely barred the path there, and, being on some duty that required extreme vigilance, they were likely to prove exacting.
 
He advanced with a clear mind toward Vicksburg, picking his way among the forests and ravines, but, after long walking over most difficult ground, he saw before him extensive earthworks thronged with Southern troops. When he turned westward the result was the same, and then it became evident that there was no flaw in the iron ring. He could not go through to Porter, he could not go back to his own army, but Vicksburg invited him as a guest.
 
He would make the trial at night. It was a long wait, but he dared not risk it by day, and, going back into one of the ravines, he sought a secluded and sheltered place. Threshing the bushes to drive away possible snakes, he crawled into a clump and lay there. Resolved to be patient in spite of everything, he did not stir, but listened to the far throbbing of the cannon which poured an incessant storm of missiles upon unhappy Vicksburg.
 
The warmth and the heavy air in the ravine were relaxing. His brain grew so dull and heavy that he fell asleep, and when he awoke the twilight was coming. And yet he had lost nothing. He had gained rather. The time had passed. His body had been strengthened and his nerves steadied while he slept.
 
The distant booming of the guns still came. He had expected it. That was Grant. He had wrapped the coil of steel around Vicksburg and he would never relax. Dick felt that there was no hope for the town, unless Johnston outside could gather a powerful army and fight Grant on even terms. But he considered it impossible, and there, too, was the great artery of the river along which flowed men and supplies of every kind for the union.
 
The Southern twilight turned swiftly into night and, coming from his lair, Dick walked boldly toward the town. He had eaten nothing since morning, but he had not noticed it, until this moment, when he began to feel a little faintness. He resolved that Vicksburg should supply him. It was curious how much help he expected of Vicksburg, a hostile town.
 
He saw lights soon both to right and to left and he strengthened his soul. He knew that he must be calm, but alert and quick with the right answer. With his singular capacity for meeting a crisis he advanced into the thick of danger with a smiling face, even as his great ancestor, Paul Cotter, had often done.
 
His calm was of short duration. There was a rushing sound, something struck violently, and a tremendous explosion followed. Fire flashed before Dick's eyes, pieces of red hot metal whistled past his head, earth spattered him and he was thrown to the ground.
 
He sprang up again, understanding all instantly. A shell from his own army had burst near him, an............