y leader. All regiments, despite new men,
had been reduced greatly by the years of fighting, and the three combined
did not number more than fifteen hundred horse. But there was not one
among them from the oldest to the youngest who did not feel elation as
they rode away on the great curve that would take them into the Valley
of Virginia.

"It's glorious to be on a horse again, with the world before you,"
said Pennington. "I was born horseback, so to speak, and I never had to
do any walking until I came to this war. The great plains and the free
winds that blow all around the earth for me."

"But you don't have rivers and hills and forests like ours," said Dick.

"I know it, but I don't miss them. I suppose it's what you're used to
that you like. I like a horizon that doesn't touch the ground anywhere
within fifteen or eighteen miles of me. And think of seeing a buffalo
herd, as I have, that's all day passing you, a million of 'em, maybe!"

"And think of being scalped by the Sioux or Cheyennes, as your people out
there often are," said Warner.

Pennington took off his cap and disclosed an uncommonly thick head of
hair.

"You see that I haven't lost mine yet," he said. "If a fellow can live
through big battles as I've lived through 'em he can escape Sioux and
Cheyennes."

"So you should. Look back now, and you can see the armies face to face."

They were on the highest hill, and all the cavalry had turned for a last
glance. Dick saw again the flashes from occasional rifle fire, and a
dark column of smoke still rising from a spot which he knew to be the
crater. He shuddered, and was glad when the force, riding on again,
passed over the hill. Before them now stretched a desolated country,
trodden under foot by the armies, and his heart bled again for Virginia,
the most reluctant of all the states to secede, and the greatest of them
all to suffer.

Colonel Hertford, Colonel Winchester, and the colonel of the third
regiment, a Pennsylvanian named Bedford, rode together and their young
officers were just behind. All examined the country continually through
glasses to guard against ambush. Stuart was gone and Forrest was far
away, but they knew that danger from the fierce riders of the South was
always present. Just when the capital seemed safest Early's men had
appeared in its very suburbs, and here in Virginia, where the hand of
every man and of every woman and child also was against them, it was wis