The two men walked further away, still talking, but Harry and Dalton could no longer hear what they were saying. The rockets soared again in the pass, and were answered in the east, but now nearer, and the two knew that it was not worth while to linger any longer. They knew the vital fact that ten thousand men were advancing through the pass, and that all the rest was superfluity. And time had a value beyond price to their cause.
CHAPTER XII. THE CLOSING CIRCLE
“George,” said Harry, “we must chance it now and get back to the horses. We’ve got to reach General Jackson before the Northern army is through the pass.”
“You lead,” said Dalton. “I don’t think we’ll have any danger except when we are in that strip of grass between these bushes and the woods.”
Harry started, and when he reached the grass threw himself almost flat on his face again, crawling forward with extreme caution. Dalton, close behind him, imitated his comrade. The high grass merely rippled as they passed and the anxious Northern officers walking back and forth were not well enough versed in woodcraft to read from any sign that an enemy was near.
Once Dalton struck his knee against a small bush and caused its leaves to rustle. A wary and experienced scout would have noticed the slight, though new noise, and Harry and Dalton, stopping, lay perfectly still. But the officers walked to and fro, undisturbed, and the two boys resumed their creeping flight.
When they reached the forest, they rose gladly from their knees, and ran up the slope, still bearing in mind that time was now the most pressing of all things. They whistled softly as they neared the little plateau, and Billy’s low answering whistle came back. They hurried up the last reach of the slope, and there he was, the eyes shining in his eager face, the three bridles clutched tightly in his small right hand.
“Did you get what you wanted?” he asked in a whisper.
“We did, Billy,” answered Harry.
“I saw ’em sendin’ up shootin’ stars an’ other shootin’ stars way off to the east answerin’, an’ I didn’t know what it meant.”
“It was their vanguard in the Gap, talking to their army several miles to the eastward. But we lay in the bushes, Billy, and we heard what their officers said. All that you heard was true. Ten thousand Yankees will be through the pass in the morning, and Stonewall Jackson will have great cause to be grateful to William Pomeroy, aged twelve.”
The boy’s eyes fairly glowed, but he was a man of action.
“Then I guess that we’ve got to jump on our horses and ride lickety split down the valley to give warnin’ to General Jackson,” he said.
Harry knew what was passing in the boy’s mind, that he would go with them all the way to Jackson, and he did not have the heart to say anything to the contrary just then. But Dalton replied:
“Right you are, Billy. We ride now as if the woods were burning behind us.”
Billy was first in the saddle and led the way. The horses had gained a good rest, while Harry and Dalton were stalking the troopers in the valley, and, after they had made the descent of the slope, they swung into a long easy gallop across the level.
The little lad still kept his place in front. Neither of the others would have deprived him of this honor which he deserved so well. He sat erect, swinging with his horse, and he showed no sign of weariness. They took no precautions now to evade a possible meeting with the enemy. What they needed was haste, haste, always haste. They must risk everything to carry the news to Jackson. A mere half hour might mean the difference between salvation and destruction.
Harry felt the great tension of the moment. The words of the Northern officers had made him understand what he already suspected. The whole fate of the Confederacy would waver in the balance on the morrow. If Jackson were surrounded and overpowered, the South would lose its right arm. Then the armies that engulfed him would join McClellan and pour forward in an overwhelming host on Richmond.