g region and all the forest was gone, except clumps of trees here
and there. The whole country would have been heavy with forest had it
not been for the tramp of war.

It was now nearly noon and the sunlight was brilliant and intense. The
glasses carried far. Dick saw a line of trees which he surmised marked
the course of the Antietam, and he saw small detachments of cavalry
which he knew were watching the advance of the Army of the Potomac.
Their purpose convinced him that Lee had not retreated across the
Potomac, but that he would fight and surely lose. Dick now believed that
so many good omens could not fail.

A horseman galloped toward them. It was Shepard again, dustier than
ever, his face pale from weariness.

"What is it, Mr. Shepard?" asked Colonel Winchester.

"I've just reported to General McClellan that our whole command at
Harper's Ferry, thirteen thousand strong, surrendered early this morning
and that Jackson with picked men has already started to join Lee!"

"My God! My God!" cried the colonel. "Oh, that lost day! We ought to
have fought yesterday and destroyed Lee, while Harper's Ferry was still
holding out! What a day! What a day! Nothing can ever pay us back for
the losing of it!"

Dick, too, felt a sinking of the heart, but despair was not written on
his face as it was on that of his colonel. Jackson might come, but it
would only be with a part of his force, that which marched the swiftest,
and the victory of the Army of the Potomac would be all the grander. The
more enemies crushed the better it would be for the Union.

"Why, colonel!" he exclaimed, "we can beat them anyhow!"

"That's so, my lad, so we can! And so we will! It was childish of me to
talk as I did. Here, Johnson, blow your best on that trumpet. I want our
regiment to be the first to reach the Antietam."

Johnson blew a long and mellow tune and the Winchester regiment swung
forward at a more rapid gait. The weather, after a day or two of
coolness, had grown intensely hot again, and the noon sun poured down
upon them sheaves of fiery rays. Dick looked back, and he saw once more
that vast billowing cloud of dust made by the marching army. But in
front he saw only quiet and peace, save for a few distant horsemen who
seemed to be riding at random.

"There's a little town called Sharpsburg in the peninsula formed by
the Potomac and the Antietam," said Shepard, who stayed with them, his
immediate work done, "and the Potomac being ve