hold him back."

"That's so. I see houses ahead. What place is it, Dick?"

"It must be Frederick. We had reports that the Johnnies were about here,
but they must have vanished, since no bullets meet us. The colonel is
looking through his glasses, and, as he does not check his horse, it is
evident that the enemy is not there."

"But maybe he has been there, and if he has we'll just take his place.
I like the looks of these Maryland towns, Frank, and they're not so
hostile to us."

Colonel Winchester's skeleton regiment, now not amounting to more than
three hundred men, was in the vanguard and it rode forward rapidly. The
people received them without either enthusiasm or marked hostility. Yet
the Union vanguard obtained news. Lee had been there with his army, but
he had gone away! Where! They could not say. The Southern officers
had been silent and the soldiers had not known. None of the people of
Frederick had been allowed to follow. A cloud of cavalry covered the
Southern movements.

"Not so definite after all," said Dick. "We know that the Southern army
has been here, but we don't know where it has gone."

"At any rate," said Pennington, "we're on the trail, and we're bound
to find it sooner or later. I learned from the hunters in Nebraska that
when you strike the trail of a buffalo herd, all you had to do was to
keep on and you'd strike the herd itself."

It was not yet noon and McClellan's army began to go into camp at
Frederick. Dick and Pennington got a chance to stroll about a little,
and they picked up much gossip. Young women, with strong Southern
proclivities, looked with frowning eyes upon their blue uniforms, but
the frank and pleasant smiles of the two lads disarmed them. Older women
of the same proclivities did not melt so easily, but continued to regard
them with a hard and burning gaze.

But there were men strongly for the Union, and the two friendly lads
picked up many details from them. They showed them a grove in which Lee,
Jackson, Longstreet and D. H. Hill had all been camped at once. People
had gone there daily for a glimpse of these famous men.

They also showed the boys the very spot where Stonewall Jackson had
come near to making an ignominious end of his great career. His faithful
horse, Little Sorrel, had been worn out by incessant marchings and must
rest for a while. The people gave him a splendid horse, but one that had
not been broken well. The first time he mounted it a band happ