have to do the best we can without him."

Their voices were lost, as they passed up the ravine and disappeared.
Then Dick and his little party came out cautiously, and followed.

"I gather from what those two said that Early's men are depressed,"
said Dick.

"They've a right to be," replied Shepard. "Their army is in bad shape,
besides being small, and now that we have a real leader we are, I think,
sure to clean up the valley."

"But there'll be plenty of hard fighting."

"Yes. We'll have to win what we get."

The ravine widened and deepened a little, and they stopped. Sergeant
Whitley in his capacity of chief scout and trailer climbed up the rocky
side and looked about a little, while the others waited. He returned
in two or three minutes, and Dick saw, by the moonlight, that his face
expressed surprise.

"What is it, sergeant?" asked Dick.

"A woman is on the mountain. She passed by the ravine not long since,
perhaps not a half hour ago."

"A woman at such a time? Why, sergeant, it's impossible!"

"No, sir, it isn't. See here!"

He opened his left hand. Within the palm lay a tiny bit of thin gray
cloth.

"There may not be more than a dozen threads here," he said, "but I found
'em sticking to a thorn bush not twenty yards away. A half hour ago they
were a part of a woman's dress. A thorn bush grows among the cedars
above. She was in a hurry, and when her dress caught in it she jerked it
loose."

"But how do you know it was only a half hour or less ago?" asked Dick.

"Because she broke two 'or three of the thorns when she jerked, and it
was so late that their wounds are still bleeding, that is, a faint bit of
sap is oozing out at the fractures."

"That sounds conclusive," said Dick, "but likely it was a mountain woman
who lives somewhere along the slope."

The sergeant shook his head.

"No, sir, it was no mountain woman," he said. "When I found the cloth
on the thorns I knelt and looked for a trail. It's hard ground mostly,
but I thought I might find the trace of a footstep somewhere. I found
several, and not one of them was made by the flat, broad shoe that
mountain women wear. I found small rounded heel prints which the shoes
worn by city women make."

"If any city woman is on this mountain she's a long way from home,"
said Warner.

"But I'm quite sure of what I say, sir," said the sergeant.

"And so am I," said Shepard, who had been listening with the keenest
attention. "Wi