the hills and valleys, the forest and the blue
loom of the mountains, so much that appealed to the eye, and yet the
horizon, looking so peaceful in the distance, was barbed with spears.
Jackson was there! The sergeant's theory had become conviction with
them. Distance had been nothing to him. He was at hand with a great
force, and Lee with another army might fall at any time upon their
flank, while McClellan was isolated and left useless, far away.

Dick's heart missed a beat or two, as he saw the sinister picture that
he had created in his own mind. Highly imaginative, he had leaped to the
conclusion that Lee and Jackson meant to trap the Union army, the hammer
beating it out on the anvil. He raised the glasses to his eyes, surveyed
the forests in the South once more, and then his heart missed another
beat.

He had caught the flash of steel, the sun's rays falling across a
bayonet or a polished rifle barrel. And then as he looked he saw the
flash again and again. He handed the glasses to Warner and said quietly:

"George, I see troops on the edge of that far hill to the south and the
east. Can't you see them, too?"

"Yes, I can make them out clearly now, as they pass across a bit of open
land. They're Confederate cavalry, two hundred at least, I should say."

Dick learned long afterward that it was the troop of Sherburne, but, for
the present, the name of Sherburne was unknown to him. He merely felt
that this was the vanguard of Jackson riding forward to set the trap.
The men were now so near that they could be seen with the naked eye, and
the sergeant said tersely:

"At last we've seen what we were afraid we would see."

"And look to the left also," said Warner, who still held the glasses.
"There's a troop of horse coming up another road, too. By George,
they're advancing at a trot! We'd better clear out or we may be enclosed
between the two horns of their cavalry."

"We'll go back to our force at Cedar Run," said Harry, "and report what
we've seen. As you say, George, there's no time to waste."

The four mounted and rode fast, the dust of the road flying in a cloud
behind their horses' heels. Dick felt that they had fulfilled their
errand, but he had his doubts how their news would be received. The
Northern generals in the east did not seem to him to equal those of the
west in keenness and resolution, while the case was reversed so far as
the Southern generals were concerned.

But fast as they went the So