Chapter IX. The Open Door - Page 2

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,