afternoon fell
peacefully away, and the general and soldiers still looked at one another.

"They're working on the bridge like mad," said Dalton, who had been away
with a message, "and it will surely be ready in the morning. Besides,
the Potomac is falling fast. You can already see the muddy lines that
it's leaving on its banks."

"And Meade's chance is slipping, slipping away!" said Harry exultingly.
"In three hours it will be sunset. They can't attack in the night and
to-morrow we'll be gone. Meade has delayed like McClellan at Antietam,
and, doubtless as McClellan did, he thinks our army much larger than it
really is."

"It's so," said Dalton. "We're to be delivered, and we're to be
delivered without a battle, a battle that we could ill afford, even if
we won it."

Both were in a state of intense anxiety and they looked many times at the
sun and their watches. Then they searched the hostile army with their
glasses. But nothing of moment was stirring there. Lower and lower sank
the sun, and a great thrill ran through the Army of Northern Virginia.
In both armies the soldiers were intelligent men--not mere creatures
of drill--who thought for themselves, and while those in the Army of
Northern Virginia were ready, even eager to fight if it were pushed upon
them, they knew the great danger of their position. Now the word ran
along the whole line that if they fought at all it would be on their side
of the river.

Harry and Dalton did not sleep that night. They could not have done
so had the chance been offered. They like others rode all through the
darkness carrying messages to the different commands, insuring exact
cooperation. As the hours of the night passed the aspect of everything
grew better. The river had fallen so fast that it would be fordable
before morning.

But after midnight the clouds gathered, thunder crashed, lightning played
and the violent rain of a summer storm enveloped them again. Harry
viewed it at first with dismay, and then he found consolation. The
darkness and the storm would cover their retreat, as it had covered the
retreat of their enemy, Hooker, after Chancellorsville.

Harry and Dalton rode close behind Lee, who sat erect on his white horse,
supervising the first movement of troops over the new and shaking bridge.
Harry noted with amazement that despite his enormous exertions, physical
and mental, and an intense anxiety, continuous for many days, he did not
yet show s