other places from which we can get good looks, lads?"

"Plenty of them," May and Powell responded together, and they led them
from hill to hill, all covered with dense forest. Several times they saw
Southern sentinels on the slopes near the edge of the woods, but May and
Powell knew the ground so thoroughly that they were always able to keep
the little troop under cover without interfering with their own scouting
operations.

Buell had given final instructions to the colonel to come back with all
the information possible, and, led by his capable guides, the colonel
used his opportunities to the utmost. He made a half circle about
Frankfort, going to the river, and then back again. With the aid of
the glasses and the brilliancy of the night he was able to see that the
division of Kirby Smith was not strong enough to hold the town under
any circumstances, if the main Union army under Buell came up, and the
colonel was resolved that it should come.

It was a singular coincidence that the Southerners were making a
military occupation of Frankfort with a Union army only a day's march
away. The colonel found a certain grim irony in it as he took his last
look and turned away to join Buell.

A half mile into the forest and they heard the crashing of hoofs in the
brushwood. Colonel Winchester drew up his little troop abruptly as a
band of men in gray emerged into an open space.

"Confederate cavalry!" exclaimed Dick.

"Yes," said the colonel.

But the gray troopers were not much more numerous than the blue.
Evidently they were a scouting party, too, and for a few minutes they
stared at each other across a space of a couple of hundred yards or so.
Both parties fired a few random rifle shots, more from a sense of duty
than a desire to harm. Then they fell away, as if by mutual consent, the
gray riding toward Frankfort and the blue toward the Union army.

"Was it a misfortune to meet them?" asked Dick.

"I don't think so," replied Colonel Winchester. "They had probably found
out already that our army was near. Of course they had out scouts. Kirby
Smith, I know, is an alert man, and anyway, the march of an army as
large as ours could not be hidden."

It was dawn again when the colonel's little party reached the Union
camp, and when he made his report the heavy columns advanced at once.
But the alarm had already spread about at Frankfort. The morning there
looked upon a scene even more lively than the one that had occurr