us," said Warner. "They're merely
telling about us. They don't intend to attack us. They haven't the men
to spare."

"No, they won't attack, they know I'm here," said Pennington.

The three colonels did not stop the column, but they watched the signals
as they rode. Nobody was able to interpret them, not even Shepard,
but they felt that they could ignore them. Colonel Hertford,
nevertheless, sent off a strong scouting party in that direction, but
as it approached the horseman on the hill rode over the other side and
disappeared.

All that day they advanced through a lonely and hostile country. It
was a region intensely Southern in its sympathies, and it seemed that
everybody, including the women and children, had fled before them.
Horses and cattle were gone also and its loneliness was accentuated by
the fact that not so long before it had been a well-peopled land, where
now the houses stood empty and silent. They saw no human beings, save
other watchmen on the hills making signals, but they were far away and
soon gone.

By noon both horses and men showed great fatigue. They had slept but
little the night before, and, toughened as they were by war, they had
reached the limit of endurance. So the trumpet sounded the halt in a
meadow beside a fine stream, and all, save those who were to ride on the
outskirts and watch for the enemy, dismounted gladly. A vast drinking
followed. The water was clear, running over clean pebbles, and a
thousand men knelt and drank again and again. Then the horses were
allowed to drink their fill, which they did with mighty gurglings of
satisfaction, and the men cooked their midday meal.

Meanwhile they talked of Sheridan. All expected battle and then battle
again when they joined him, and they looked forward to a great campaign
in the valley. That valley was not so far away. The blue walls of the
mountains that hemmed its eastern edge were very near now. Dick looked
at them through his glasses, not to find an enemy, but merely for the
pleasure of bringing out the heavy forests on their slopes. It was true
that the leaves were already touched by the summer's heat, but in the
distance at least the mass looked green. He knew also that under the
screen of the leaves the grass preserved its freshness and there were
many little streams, foaming in white as they rushed down the steep
slopes. It was a marvelously pleasing sight to him, and, as the
wilderness thus called, he w