Part 26 (1/2)

”I think he was detailed for some scout duty off toward the Blue Ridge”

”I don't know who sent him, but I make bold to say, Mr. Mason, that he could do a lot more good out there in the fog on the other side of Cedar Creek, a-spyin' and a-spyin', a-lookin' and a-lookin', a-listenin' and a-listenin'.”

”And perhaps he would neither see nor hear anything”

”Maybe, sir, but if I may make bold again, I think you're wrong. Why, I just fairly smell danger.”

”It's the fog and your fear of it, sergeant.”

”No, sir; it's not that. It's my five senses working all together and telling me the truth.”

”But the pickets have brought in no word.”

”In this fog, pickets can't see more'n a few yards beyond their beats.

What time is it, Mr. Mason?”

”A little past one in the morning, sergeant.”

”Enough of the night left yet for a lot of mischief. I'm glad, sir, if I may make bold once more, that the Winchester men stay out of the tents and keep awake.”

Warner joined them, and reported that fresh messengers from the front had given renewed a.s.surances of quiet. Absolutely nothing was stirring along Cedar Creek, but Sergeant Daniel Whitley was still dissatisfied.

”It's always where nothin' is stirrin' that most is doin', sir,” he said to d.i.c.k.

”You're epigrammatic, sergeant.”

”I'm what, sir? I was never called that before.”

”It doesn't depreciate you. It's a flattering adjective, but you've set my own nerves to tingling and I don't feel like sleeping.”

”It never hurts, sir, to watch in war, even when nothing happens. I remember once when we were in a blizzard west of the Missouri, only a hundred of us. It was in the country of the Northern Cheyennes, an' no greater fighters ever lived than them red demons. We got into a kind of dip, surrounded by trees, an' managed to build a fire. We was so busy tryin' to keep from freezin' to death that we never gave a thought to Indians, that is 'ceptin' one, the guide, Jim Palmer, who knowed them Cheyennes, an' who kept dodgin' about in the blizzard, facin' the icy blast an' the whirlin' snow, an' always lookin' an' listenin'. I owe my life to him, an' so does every other one of the hundred. Sh.o.r.e enough the Cheyennes come, ridin' right on the edge of the blizzard, an' in all that terrible storm they tried to rush us. But we'd been warned by Palmer an' we beat 'em off at last, though a lot of good men bit the snow. I say again, sir, that you can't ever be too careful in war. Do everything you can think of, and then think of some more. I wish Mr. Shepard would come!”

They continued to walk back and forth, in front of the lines, and, at times, they were accompanied by Colonel Winchester or Warner or Pennington. The colonel fully shared the sergeant's anxieties. The fact that most of the Union army was asleep in the tents alarmed him, and the great fog added to his uneasiness. It came now in heavy drifts like clouds sweeping down the valley, and he did not know what was in the heart of it. The pickets had been sent far forward, but the vast moving column of heavy whitish vapor hid everything from their eyes, too, save a circle of a few yards about them.

Toward morning d.i.c.k, the colonel and the sergeant stood together, trying to pierce the veil of vapor in front of them. The colonel did not hesitate to speak his thought to the two.

”I wish that General Sheridan was here,” he said.

”But he's at Winchester,” said d.i.c.k. ”He'll join us at noon.”

”I wish he was here now, and I wish, too, that this fog would lift, and the day would come. Hark, what was that?”

”It was a rifle shot, sir,” said the sergeant.

”And there are more,” exclaimed d.i.c.k. ”Listen!”

There was a sudden crackle of firing, and in front of them pink dots appeared through the fog.

”Here comes the Southern army!” said Sergeant Whitley.

Out of the fog rose a tremendous swelling cry from thousands of throats, fierce, long-drawn, and full of menace. It was the rebel yell, and from another point above the rising thunder of cannon and rifles came the same yell in reply, like a signal. The surprise was complete. Gordon had hurled himself upon the Union flank and at the same moment Early, according to his plan, drove with all his might at the center.