at do you say?"

"I think so too, sir," said Shepard. "I can lead my horse back some
distance through the forest, then mount and gallop up the road. They may
be gone before I come again, but if they are not we can soon drive them
away."

"We'll cover you with our rifles against any rush made by Slade's men,"
said Dick.

But it did not become necessary to fire. Shepard was able to lead his
horse through the woods without noise, until he was at least three
hundred yards on the return journey. Then he mounted and galloped at
great speed up the pass. Dick heard the distant thud of hoofs growing
fainter and fainter until they died away altogether, and he knew that
Slade must have heard them too. And a man as acute and experienced as
the guerrilla chief would easily divine their meaning.

The rain ceased, and the moaning and whistling of the wind in the pass
became a murmur. The clouds parted and sank away toward every horizon,
leaving the full dome of the sky, shot with a bright moon and millions of
dancing stars. A silvery light over the woods and thickets drove away
the deep darkness, and when Sergeant Whitley crept forward again to spy
out the enemy he found that they were gone. He trailed them up the lofty
slope and discovered, as he had surmised, that they had left their horses
there while they attempted the ambush. He was sure now that they were
far away, and he returned with his story, just as Shepard arrived with
the vanguard of the column, led by Colonel Winchester.

"And so it was Slade!" said the Colonel.

"Undoubtedly, sir," said Dick. "I saw him plainly, and so did Sergeant
Whitley."

"I'm not sorry he's here," said Colonel Winchester thoughtfully, "and I
hope the story that he and Skelly have joined bands is true, because if
they are in this region they're so far away from Pendleton that your
people are safe from mischief at their hands."

"I hadn't thought of it in that way, sir, but it's just as you say.
I'd rather have to fight them here than have them attacking our innocent
people at home. In the early part of the war Skelly called himself a
Unionist, did he not?"

"Yes, and he may do so yet, but names are nothing to him. He'd rob,
and murder, too, with equal zest under either flag."

"It's so," said Dick, and he felt the full truth as he thought of
Pendleton, and his beautiful young mother, alone in her house, save for
the gigantic and faithful Juliana. But Juliana was an armed ho