al command, although he knew in his heart
that the spy and the sergeant would be the real leaders, a fact which he
did not resent. Warner and Pennington begged to go too, but they were
left behind.

Shepard had received a remount, and, as all of them rode good horses,
they advanced at a swift trot through the great gap. The spy, who knew
the pass, led the way. The column behind, although it was coming forward
at a good pace, disappeared with remarkable quickness. Dick, looking
back, saw a dusky line of horsemen, and then he saw nothing. He did not
look back again. His eyes were wholly for Shepard and the dim path ahead.

The aspect of the mountains, which had been so inviting before they came
to them, changed wholly. Dick did not long so much for green foliage now,
as a chill wind began to blow. All of them carried cloaks or overcoats
rolled tightly and tied to their saddles, which they loosed and put on.
The wind rose, and, confined within the narrow limits of the pass,
it began to groan loudly. A thin sheet of rain came on its edge, and the
drops were almost as cold as those of winter.

Dick's first sensation of uneasiness and discomfort disappeared quickly.
Like his cousin, Harry, he had inherited a feeling for the wilderness.
His own ancestor, Paul Cotter, had been a great woodsman too, and,
as he drew on the buckskin gauntlets and wrapped the heavy cloak about
his body, his second sensation was one of actual physical pleasure.
Why should he regard the forest with a hostile eye? His ancestors had
lived in it and often its darkness had saved them from death by torture.

He looked up at the dark slopes, but he could see only the black masses
of foliage and the thin sheets of driven rain. For a little while,
at least, his mind reproduced the wilderness. It was there in all its
savage loneliness and majesty. He could readily imagine that the Indians
were lurking in the brush, and that the bears and panthers were seeking
shelter in their dens. But his own feeling of safety and of mental and
physical pleasure in the face of obstacles deepened.

"I've been just that way myself," said Sergeant Whitley, who was riding
beside him and who could both see and read his face. "On the plains
when we were so well wrapped up that the icy winds whistling around us
couldn't get at us then we felt all the better. But it was best when we
were inside the fort and the winter blizzard was howling."

"A lot of us were ta