eater volume than ever.
Colonel Winchester, true to Lee and Jackson's plan of grand tactics,
had opened an extremely heavy fire on the enemy, as soon as his flanking
column had disappeared in the gorge.

"I 'low the signs are good," whispered Reed. "Them that lay an ambush
sometimes git laid in an ambush theirselves. I felt pow'ful bad at bein'
held in a trap here in my own mountings by them gorillers, but mebbe
we'll do some trap-layin' uv our own."

"I feel sure of it," said Dick. "Look! the stream ahead of us is lined
with bushes which will afford concealment for our march, and the slopes
beyond are covered with scrub forest."

"Like ez not the gorillers come that way, an' when we circle about we kin
foller in thar tracks."

Dick felt that fortune was showering her favors upon him. The last star
was now gone, and the entire sky was veiled. The big flakes of snow were
falling fast enough to help their concealment, but not fast enough to
impede their movements. A mile down the gorge and they halted, still
unseen by the enemy, due doubtless to the heavy firing in the valley
which was engrossing all the attention of the guerrillas. They could
hear it very distinctly where they were, and they were quite sure that it
would not permit Slade and Skelly to detach any part of their force for
purposes of observation. So Dick gave orders for his men to turn and
begin the ascent of the slope, under shelter of the scrub forest of
cedars. They were to go in a column four abreast, carefully treading in
the tracks of one another, in order that they might not start a slide of
snow.

Dick's pulses beat hard, until they reached the shelter of the cedars,
but no lurking guerrilla or posted sentinel saw them and they drew into
the forest in silence and unobserved. Here they paused a few minutes and
listened to the heavy rifle fire in the valley.

"It looks like a success, sir," said Shepard. "If we catch 'em between
two fires victory is surely ours."

"Besides beatin' 'em, thar's one thing I hope fur," said Reed. "Ef that
traitor Leonard hasn't fell already I'm prayin' that I git a look at him.
My old cap-an'-ball rifle here is jest ez true ez ever."

The mountaineer's eyes glittered again, and Dick did not feel that
Leonard's fate was in any doubt. But there was little time for talk,
as the column began the march again and pressed on under cover of the
cedars until they came without interruption and triumphantly to