Part 11 (2/2)

”Yes, I caught a glimpse of him. It was Slade, who tried so hard to kill you down there in the Vicksburg campaign. If we get another ray of the moonlight I'll pick him off, that is if you say so, sir.”

”I've no objection, sergeant. Such a man as Slade c.u.mbers the earth.

Besides, he'll do everything he can now to kill us.”

The sergeant knelt, carbine raised, and waited for the ray of moonlight. He was a dead shot, and he believed that he would not miss, but when the ray came at last Slade was not there. Whitley uttered a low exclamation of disgust.

”A good chance gone,” he said, ”and it may never come again. I'd have saved the lives of a lot of good men.”

But a flash came from the thicket, and the sergeant from the gra.s.s replied. A cry followed his shot, showing that some one had received his bullet, but d.i.c.k knew instinctively that it was not Slade, the crafty leader he was sure now being safe behind the trunk of a tree.

Presently the sergeant fired from another point, and then crept hastily away lest the flash of his rifle betray him. A dozen shots were fired by Slade's band, but no harm was done, and then, the sergeant coming back, d.i.c.k held a consultation with his two lieutenants and advisers.

”Perhaps we may flank them,” he said. ”We can divide our force, and taking them by surprise drive them out of the wood.”

But Sergeant Whitley, wary and weatherwise, was against it.

”The risk would be too great, sir,” he said. ”We can afford to wait while they can't. Our whole column will be up in time, while it's not likely that anybody can come to help Slade. It's true too, sir, that this rain is going to stop. The clouds are beginning to clear away, and when there's light we'll have a fair chance at 'em.”

”I think,” said d.i.c.k, ”that it will be best for Mr. Shepard to return and hurry up a relieving column. What do you say?”

”I think so too, sir,” said Shepard. ”I can lead my horse back some distance through the forest, then mount and gallop up the road. They may be gone before I come again, but if they are not we can soon drive them away.”

”We'll cover you with our rifles against any rush made by Slade's men,” said d.i.c.k.

But it did not become necessary to fire. Shepard was able to lead his horse through the woods without noise, until he was at least three hundred yards on the return journey. Then he mounted and galloped at great speed up the pa.s.s. d.i.c.k heard the distant thud of hoofs growing fainter and fainter until they died away altogether, and he knew that Slade must have heard them too. And a man as acute and experienced as the guerrilla chief would easily divine their meaning.

The rain ceased, and the moaning and whistling of the wind in the pa.s.s became a murmur. The clouds parted and sank away toward every horizon, leaving the full dome of the sky, shot with a bright moon and millions of dancing stars. A silvery light over the woods and thickets drove away the deep darkness, and when Sergeant Whitley crept forward again to spy out the enemy he found that they were gone. He trailed them up the lofty slope and discovered, as he had surmised, that they had left their horses there while they attempted the ambush. He was sure now that they were far away, and he returned with his story, just as Shepard arrived with the vanguard of the column, led by Colonel Winchester.

”And so it was Slade!” said the Colonel.

”Undoubtedly, sir,” said d.i.c.k. ”I saw him plainly, and so did Sergeant Whitley.”

”I'm not sorry he's here,” said Colonel Winchester thoughtfully, ”and I hope the story that he and Skelly have joined bands is true, because if they are in this region they're so far away from Pendleton that your people are safe from mischief at their hands.”

”I hadn't thought of it in that way, sir, but it's just as you say.

I'd rather have to fight them here than have them attacking our innocent people at home. In the early part of the war Skelly called himself a Unionist, did he not?”

”Yes, and he may do so yet, but names are nothing to him. He'd rob, and murder, too, with equal zest under either flag.”

”It's so,” said d.i.c.k, and he felt the full truth as he thought of Pendleton, and his beautiful young mother, alone in her house, save for the gigantic and faithful Juliana. But Juliana was an armed host herself, and d.i.c.k smiled at the recollection of the strong and honest black face that had bent over him so often. He prayed without words that these ruthless guerrillas, no matter what flag they bore, should never come to Pendleton.

”I don't think our column on its present march need fear anything from Slade and his band,” said Colonel Winchester. ”Such as he can operate only from ambush, and so far as Virginia is concerned, in the mountains. Shepard says we'll be out of the pa.s.s in another hour, and by that time it will be day. I'll be glad, too, as the cold rain and the darkness and the long ride are beginning to affect the men.”

The column resumed its march, d.i.c.k rode by the side of Colonel Winchester. Time, propinquity, genuine esteem, and a fourth influence which d.i.c.k did not as yet suspect, were fast knitting these two, despite the difference in age, into a friends.h.i.+p which nothing could break. The meeting with Slade was forgotten quickly, by all except those concerned, and by most of those too, so vast was the war and so little s.p.a.ce did it afford for the memory of brief events. Yet it lingered a while with d.i.c.k. Twice now he had met Slade and he felt that he would meet him yet again at points far apart.

Dawn came slow and gray in a cloudy sky, but the sun soon broke through. The heat returned and the earth began to dry. The three colonels felt it necessary to give their men rest and food, and let them dry their uniforms, which had become wet in many cases, despite their overcoats and heavy cloaks.

They were now in a deep cove of the great Valley of Virginia, with the steep mountains just behind them, and far beyond the dim blue outline of other mountains enclosing it on the west. As the fires blazed up and the men made coffee and cooked their breakfasts, d.i.c.k's heart leaped. This was the great valley once more, where so much history had been made. Lee and Grant were deadlocked in the trenches before Petersburg, but here in the valley history would be made again. It was the finest part of Virginia, the greatest state of the Confederacy, and d.i.c.k knew in his heart that some heavy blows would soon be struck, where fields already had been won and lost in desperate strife.

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