Part 15 (2/2)
”What are you thinking about, Ohio?” asked d.i.c.k.
”I'm thinking how fast I'm growing old. Two years and a half in the war, but it's twenty-five years in fact. I hadn't finished school when I left home and here I am, a veteran of more battles than any soldiers have fought since the days of old Bonaparte. If I happen to live through this war, which I mean to do, I wonder how I'll ever settle down at home again. Father will say to me: 'Get the plough and break up the five-acre field for corn,' and me, maybe a veteran of a dozen pitched battles in every one of which anywhere from one hundred thousand to two hundred thousand men have been engaged, not to mention fifty or a hundred smaller battles and four or five hundred skirmishes.
”When the flies begin to buzz around me I'll think they make a mighty poor noise compared with the roar of three or four hundred big cannon and a hundred thousand rifles that I've listened to so often. If a yellow jacket should sting me, I'd say what a little thing it is, compared with the piece of shrapnel that hit me at some battle not yet fought. Maybe I'd find things so quiet I just couldn't stand it. Wars are mighty unsettling.”
”I'm thinking,” said d.i.c.k, ”that before this war is over all of us will get enough of it to last a lifetime. We've got the edge on 'em now, since Vicksburg and Gettysburg, but the Graybacks are not yet beaten by a long shot. We've heard how Lee drew off from Gettysburg carrying all his guns and supplies, and even with Gettysburg we haven't been doing so well in the East as we have in the West. You know that, Ohio?”
”Of course, I do. But I think the Johnnies have made their high-water mark. Great work our army did down there at Vicksburg, and we'll have the chance to do just as well against Bragg. We'll defeat him, of course. Now, Mason, notice that light flickering on the mountain up there!”
He pointed to the crest of a ridge two or three miles away, where d.i.c.k saw a point of flame appearing and reappearing, and answered by another point farther down, which flickered in the same manner.
”Signals of some kind, I suppose,” replied d.i.c.k, ”but I don't know who makes them or what they mean.”
”I don't know what they mean, either,” said Ohio; ”but I can guess pretty well who's making them. That's Slade.”
”Slade!” said d.i.c.k.
”Yes, you seem to have heard of him?”
”So I have, and I've seen him, also. I heard, too, that he was up here making things unhappy for our side. He was in Vicksburg, although you may not have heard of him there, but he got out before the surrender. A cunning fellow. A sort of land pirate.”
”He's all of that. Since we've been coming through the mountains he and his band have picked off a lot of our men. Those signals must mean that they're preparing for another raid. I shouldn't like to be a half-mile from our lines to-night.”
”Why can't we smoke him out, Ohio?”
”Because when we're half way up the slope he and his men are gone on the other side. Besides, they can rake us with bullets from ambush, while we're climbing up the ridge. And when we get there, they're gone. It's these mountains that give the irregulars their chance. See, two lights are winking at each other now!”
”How far apart would you say they are, Ohio?”
”A mile, maybe, but one is much higher than the other up the mountain. The lower light, doubtless, is signaling information about us to the higher. I see your colonel and our colonel talking together. Maybe we're going to set a trap. It would be a good thing if we could clean out those fellows.”
”I'm thinking that your guess is a good one,” said d.i.c.k, as he rose to his feet, ”because Colonel Winchester is beckoning to me now.”
”And there's a call for me, too,” said Ohio, rising. ”Talk of a thing and it happens. We're surely going for those lights.”
They had reckoned right. General Thomas, when he saw the signals, had summoned some of his best officers and they had talked together earnestly. The general had not said much before, but the incessant sharpshooting from the bushes and slopes as they marched southward had caused him intense annoyance, and, if continued, he knew that it would hurt the spirit of the troops.
”We shall try to trap Slade's band to-night,” said Colonel Winchester to d.i.c.k and the other young officers who gathered around him. ”We think he has three or four hundred men and my regiment can deal with that number. We will defile to the right without noise and make our way up the mountain. An Ohio regiment, which can also deal with Slade if it catches him, will defile to the left. Maybe we can trap these irregulars between us. Sergeant Whitley will guide my force.”
The sergeant stepped forward, proud of the honor and trust. d.i.c.k, looking at him in the moonlight, said to himself for the hundredth time that he was a magnificent specimen of American manhood, thick, powerful, intelligent, respectful to his superior officers, who often knew less than he did, a veteran from whom woods, hills, and plains hid few secrets. He thought it a good thing that the sergeant was to be their guide, because he would lead them into no ambush.
As d.i.c.k turned away for departure Ohio said to him: ”We'll meet on the mountain side, and I hope we'll catch our game, but don't you fellows fire into us in the dark.”
d.i.c.k promised and his regiment marched away toward the slope. All were on foot, of course, and they had received strict instructions to make no noise. They turned northward, left the camp behind them, and were soon hidden in the dark.
d.i.c.k was at the head of the column with Colonel Winchester and the sergeant. Warner and Pennington were further back. The darkness was heavy in the shadow of the slope and among the bushes, but, looking backward, d.i.c.k clearly saw the camp of General Thomas with its thousands of men and dozens of fires. Figures pa.s.sed and repa.s.sed before the flames, and the fused noises of a great camp came from the valley.
d.i.c.k took only a glance or two. His whole attention now was for the sergeant, who was looking here and there and sniffing the air, like a great hound seeking the trail. The soldier had melted into the scout, and Colonel Winchester, knowing him so well, had, in effect, turned the regiment over to him.
d.i.c.k and other young officers were sent back through the column to see that they marched without noise. It was not difficult to enforce the orders, as the men were filled with the ardor of the hunt, and would do everything to insure its success. When d.i.c.k came back to the head of the column he merely heard the tread of feet and the rustling of uniforms against the bushes behind them.
The sergeant led on with unerring skill and instinct. They were rising fast on the slope, and the great forest received and hid them as if they were its wild children returned to their home. The foliage was so dense that d.i.c.k caught only flitting glimpses of the camp below, although many fires were yet burning there.
The wisdom of putting the regiment into the hands of the sergeant was now shown. Rising to the trust, he called up all his reserves of wilderness lore. He listened attentively to the voice of every night bird, because it might not be real, but instead the imitation call of man to man. He searched in every opening under the moonlight for traces of footsteps, which he alone could have seen, and, when at last he found them, d.i.c.k, despite the dusk, saw his figure expand and his eyes flash. He had been kneeling down examining the imprints and when he arose the colonel asked: ”What is it, Whitley?”
”Men have pa.s.sed here, sir, and, as they couldn't have been ours, they were the enemy. The tracks lead south on the slope, and they must have been going that way to join Slade's command.”
”Then you think, Sergeant, we should follow this trail?”
”Undoubtedly, sir, but we must look out for an ambush. These men know the mountains thoroughly, and if we were to walk into their trap they might cut us to pieces.”
”Then we won't walk into it. Lead on, Sergeant. If the enemy is near, I know that you will find him in time.”
The sergeant's brown face flushed with pride, but he followed on the trail without a word and behind him came the whole regiment, implicit in its trust, and winding without noise like a great coiling serpent through the forest.
d.i.c.k was a woodsman himself, and he kept close to the sergeant, watching his methods, and seeking also what he could find. While they lost the trail now and then, he saw the sergeant recover it in the openings. He noted, too, that it was increasing in size. Little trails were flowing into the big one like brooks into a river, and the main course was uniformly south, but bearing slightly upward on the slope.
The sergeant stopped at the melancholy cry of an owl, apparently three or four hundred yards ahead. Both he and d.i.c.k raised their heads and listened for the answer, which they felt sure was ready. The long, sinister hoot in reply came from a point considerably farther away, but at about the same height on the slope.
”They have two forces, sir,” said the sergeant to Colonel Winchester, ”and I think they're about to unite.”
”As a wilderness fighter, what would you suggest, Sergeant?”
”To wait here a little and lie hidden in the brush. We're rightly afraid of an ambush if we go on, then why not make the same danger theirs? I think it likely that the other force is coming this way. Anyway, we can tell in a minute or two, 'cause them owls are sure to hoot again. If I'm right, we can catch 'em napping.”
”An excellent idea, Sergeant. Ah! there are the signals you predicted!”
The owl hooted again from the same point directly in front, and then came the reply of the other, now nearer. The sergeant drew a deep breath of satisfaction.
”Yes, sir, I was right,” he said. ”Their meeting place is straight in front. Will you let me slip forward a little through the brush and see?”
”Go ahead, Sergeant. We need all the information we can get, but don't walk into any trap yourself, leaving us here without eyes or ears.”
”Never fear, sir. I won't be caught.”
Then he disappeared with a suddenness that made the colonel and d.i.c.k gasp. He was with them, and then he was not. But he returned in ten minutes, and, although d.i.c.k could not see it in his face, he was triumphant.
”There's a glade not more'n four hundred yards ahead,” he whispered to the colonel, ”and about a hundred and fifty men, armed with long rifles, are lying down in it waiting for a second force, which I judge from the cry of the owl will be there inside of five minutes.”
”Then,” said Colonel Winchester, breathing fast, ”we'll wait ten minutes and attack. It would be a great stroke to wipe out Slade's band. I'm sorry for those Ohio fellows, but the luck's ours to-night, or I should say that the sergeant's skill as a trailer has given us the chance.”
It was soon known along the black, winding line that the enemy was at hand, and the men were eager to attack, but they were ordered to have patience for a little while. Their leader wished to destroy Slade's whole force at one stroke.
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