ind them, but they knew it was there.

"Slow now, boys," said Sherburne, as they rode into the stream. "We
don't want to make too much noise splashing the water. Are there many
boulders in here, Mr. Lankford?"

"Not enough to hurt."

"Then you lead the way. The men can come four abreast."

The water was about a foot deep, and despite their care eight hundred
hoofs made a considerable splashing, but the creek soon turned around
a hill and led on through dense forest. Sherburne and Harry were
satisfied that no Union horseman had either seen or heard them, and they
followed Lankford with absolute confidence. Now and then the hoofs of a
stumbling horse would grind on the stones, but there was no other noise
save the steady marching of two hundred men through water.

The things that Lankford had asserted continued to come true. The creek
presently flowed between banks fifty feet high, rocky and steep as a
wall. But the stone bed of the creek was almost as smooth as a floor,
and they stopped here a while to rest and let their horses drink.

The enclosing walls were not more than fifty or sixty feet across the
top and it was very dark in the gorge. Harry saw overhead a slice of
dusky sky, lit by only a few stars, but it was pitchy black where he
sat on his horse, and listened to his contented gurglings as he drank.
He could merely make out the outlines of his comrades, but he knew that
Sherburne was on one side of him and Lankford on the other. He could
not hear the slightest sound of pursuit, and he was convinced that the
Union cavalry had lost their trail. So was Sherburne.

"We owe you a big debt, Mr. Lankford," said the captain.

"I've tried to serve my side," said Lankford, "though, as I told you,
I'm not goin' on the firin' line. It's not worth while for all of us
to get killed. Later on this country will need some people who are not
dead."

"You're right about that, Mr. Lankford," said Sherburne, with a little
laugh, "and you, for one, although you haven't gone on the firing lines,
have earned the right to live. You've done us a great service, sir."

"I reckon I have," said Lankford with calm egotism, "but it was
necessary for me to do it. I've got an inquirin' mind, I have, and also
a calculatin' one. When I saw your little troop comin', an' then that
big troop of the Yankees comin' on behind, I knowed that you needed
help. I knowed that this creek run down a gorge, and that I could lead
you