ell's corps soon, and General
Jackson himself is worth ten thousand men."

"That's so, Harry, but ten thousand men are far too few. McDowell's
whole corps is available, and with it the Yankees can now turn more than
seventy thousand men into the valley."

"And they can fight, too, as we saw at Kernstown," said St. Clair.

"That's so, and I'm thinking they'll get their stomachs full of it
pretty soon," said Langdon. "Yesterday about dusk I went out in some
bushes after firewood, and I saw a man kneeling. It struck me as
curious, and I went up closer. What do you think? It was Old Jack
praying. Not any mock prayer, but praying to his Lord with all his heart
and soul. I'm not much on praying myself, but I felt pretty solemn then,
and I slid away from there as quick and quiet as you please. And I
tell you, fellows, that when Stonewall Jackson prays it's time for the
Yankees to weep."

"You're probably right, Langdon," said Captain Sherburne, "but it's
time for us to be going back, and we'll tell what we've seen to General
Jackson."

As they turned away a crunching in the snow on the other slope caused
them to stop. The faces of men and then their figures appeared through
the bushes. They were eight or ten in number and all wore blue uniforms.
Harry saw the leader, and instantly he recognized Shepard. It came to
him, too, in a flash of prescience, that Shepard was just the man whom
he would meet there.

Sherburne, who had seen the blue uniforms, raised a pistol and fired.
Two shots were fired by the Union men at the same instant, and then both
parties dropped back from the crest, each on its own side.

Sherburne's men were untouched and Harry was confident that Shepard's
had been equally lucky--the shots had been too hasty--but it was nervous
and uncomfortable work, lying there in the snow, and waiting for the
head of an enemy to appear over the crest.

Harry was near Captain Sherburne, and he whispered to him:

"I know the man whose face appeared first through the bushes."

"Who is he?"

"His name is Shepard. He's a spy and scout for the North, and he is
brave and dangerous. He was in Montgomery when President Davis was
inaugurated. I saw him in Washington when I was there as a spy myself. I
saw him again in Winchester just before the battle of Kernstown, and now
here he is once more."

"Must be a Wandering Jew sort of a fellow."

"He wanders with purpose. He has certainly come up here to spy us out."

"In