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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.
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