Part 24 (1/2)

”I think as you do,” said Warner. ”I suppose it's best for the cavalry to go back, but I wish General Sheridan had taken me on to Was.h.i.+ngton with him. I'd like to see the lights of the capital again. Besides, I'd have given the President and the Secretary of War some excellent advice.”

”He isn't jesting. He means it,” said Pennington to d.i.c.k.

”Of course I do,” said Warner calmly. ”When General Sheridan failed to take me with him, the government lost a great opportunity.”

But their hearts were light and they rode gaily back, unconscious of the singular event that was preparing for them.

The army of Early had not been destroyed entirely. Sheridan, with all his energy, and with all the courage and zeal of his men could not absolutely crush his foe. Some portions of the hostile force were continually slipping away, and now Early, refusing to give up, was gathering them together again, and was meditating a daring counter stroke. The task might well have appalled any general and any troops, but if Early had one quality in preeminence it was the resolution to fight. And most of his officers and men were veterans. Many of them had ridden with Jackson on his marvelous campaigns. They were familiar with the taste of victory, and defeat had been very bitter to them. They burned to strike back, and they were willing to dare anything for the sake of it.

Orders had already gone to all the scattered and ragged fragments, and the men in gray were concentrating. Many of them were half starved. The great valley had been stripped of all its live stock, all its grain and of every other resource that would avail an army. Nothing could be obtained, except at Staunton, ninety miles back of Fisher's Hill, and wagons could not bring up food in time from such a distant place.

Nevertheless the men gleaned. They searched the fields for any corn that might be left, and ate it roasted or parched. Along the slopes of the mountains they found nuts already ripening, and these were prizes indeed.

Among the gleaners were Harry Kenton, the staunch young Presbyterian, Dalton, and the South Carolinians, St. Clair and Langdon. St. Clair alone was impeccable of uniform, absolutely trim, and Langdon alone deserved his nickname of Happy.

”Don't be discouraged, boys,” he said as he pulled from the stalk an ear of corn that the hoofs of the Northern cavalry had failed to trample under. ”Now this is a fine ear, a splendid ear, and if you boys search well you may be able to find others like it. All things come to him who looks long enough. Remember how Nebuchadnezzar ate gra.s.s, and he must have had to do some hunting too, because I understand gra.s.s didn't grow very freely in that part of the world, and then remember also that we are not down to gra.s.s yet. Corn, nuts and maybe a stray pumpkin or two. 'Tis a repast fit for the G.o.ds, n.o.ble sirs.”

”I can go without, part of the time,” said Harry, ”but it hurts me to have to hunt through a big field for a nubbin of corn and then feel happy when I've got the wretched, dirty, insignificant little thing. My father often has a hundred acres of corn in a single field, producing fifty bushels to the acre.”

”And my father,” said Dalton, ”has a single field of fifty acres that produces fifteen hundred bushels of wheat, but it's been a long time since I've seen a shock of wheat.”

”Console yourself with the knowledge,” said Harry, ”that it's too late in the year for wheat to be in the stack.”

”Or anywhere else, either, so far as we're concerned.”

”Don't murmur,” said Happy. ”Mourners seldom find anything, but optimists find, often. Didn't I tell you so? Here's another ear.”

Harry had approached the edge of the field and he saw something red gleaming through a fringe of woods beyond. The experienced eye of youth told him at once what it was, and he called to his comrades.

”Come on, boys,” he said. ”There's a little orchard beyond the wood. I know there is because I caught a glimpse of a red apple hanging from a tree. I suppose the skirt of forest kept the Yankee raiders from seeing it.”

They followed with a shout of joy.

”Treasure trove!” exclaimed Happy.

”Who's an optimist now?” asked Harry.

”All of us are,” said St. Clair.

They pa.s.sed through the wood and entered a small orchard of not more than half an acre. But it was filled with apple trees loaded with red apples, big juicy fellows, just ripened by the October sun. A little beyond the orchard in a clearing was a small log house, obviously that of the owner of the orchard, and also obviously deserted. No smoke rose from the chimneys, and windows and doors were nailed up. The proprietor no doubt had gone with his family to some town and the apples would have rotted on the ground had the young officers not found them.

”There must be bushels and bushels here,” said St. Clair. ”We'll fill up our sacks first and then call the other men.”

They had brought sacks with them for the corn, but the few ears they had found took up but little s.p.a.ce.

”I'll climb the trees, and shake 'em down,” said Harry. He was up a tree in an instant, all his boyhood coming back to him, and, as he shook with his whole strength, the red apples, held now by twigs nearly dead, rained down. They pa.s.sed from tree to tree and soon their sacks were filled.

”Now for the colonels,” said St. Clair, ”and on our way we'll tell the others.”