he soles of
my feet."

"Look out, boys," said St. Clair. "Here comes the general!"

General Jackson was walking toward them. His face had the usual intense,
preoccupied look, but he smiled slightly when he saw the three lads.

"Come, young gentlemen," he said, "we're going to take a look at the
enemy."

A group of older officers joined him, and the three lads followed
modestly. They reached a towering crag and from it Harry saw a deep
valley fringed with woods, a river rushing down its center and further
on a village. Both banks of the river were thick with troops, men in
blue. Over and beyond the valley was a great mass of mountains, ridge
on ridge and peak on peak, covered with black forest, and cut by defiles
and ravines so narrow that it was always dark within them.

Harry felt a strange, indescribable thrill. The presence of the enemy
and the wild setting of the mountains filled him with a kind of awe.

"It's a Northern army under Milroy," whispered St. Clair, who now heard
Jackson talking to the older officers.

"Then there's going to be a battle," said Harry.

CHAPTER VIII. THE MOUNTAIN BATTLE

General Jackson and several of his senior officers were examining the
valley with glasses, but Harry, with eyes trained to the open air and
long distances, could see clearly nearly all that was going on below.
He saw movement among the masses of men in blue, and he saw officers on
horseback, galloping along the banks of the river. Then he saw cannon
in trenches with their muzzles elevated toward the heights, and he knew
that the Union troops must have had warning of Jackson's coming. And he
saw, too, that the officers below also had glasses through which they
were looking.

There was a sudden blaze from the mouth of one of the cannon. A shell
shot upward, whistling and shrieking, and burst far above their heads.
Harry heard pieces of falling metal striking on the rocks behind them.
The mountains sent back the cannon's roar in a sinister echo.

A second gun flashed and again the shell curved over their heads.
But Jackson paid no heed. He was still watching intently through his
glasses.

"The enemy is up and alert," whispered St. Clair to Harry. "I judge that
these are Western men used to sleeping with their eyes open."

"Like as not a lot of them are mountain West Virginians," said Harry.
"They are strong for the North, and it's likely, too, that they're the
men who have discovered Jackson's advance.