“I think, Billy, that Harry and I are going to dismount, slip down the mountainside, see what we can see, hear what we can hear, and that you’ll stay here, holding and guarding the horses until we come back.”
“I won’t!” exclaimed Billy in violent indignation. “I won’t, Cousin George. I’m going down the mountain with you an’ Mr. Kenton.”
“Now, Billy,” said Dalton soothingly, “you’ve got a most important job here. You’re the reserve, and you also hold the means of flight. Suppose we’re pursued hotly, we couldn’t get away without the horses that you’ll hold for us. Suppose we should be taken. Then it’s for you to gallop back with the news that Shields’ whole army will be in the pass in the morning, and under such circumstances, your mother would send you on to General Jackson with a message of such immense importance.”
“That’s so,” said Billy with conviction, in the face of so much eloquence and logic, “but I don’t want you fellows to be captured.”
Dalton and Harry dismounting, gave the reins of their horses into the hands of Billy, and the small fingers clutched them tightly.
“Stay exactly where you are, Billy,” said Harry. “We want to find you without trouble when we come back.”
“I’ll be here,” said Billy proudly.
Harry and Dalton began the descent through the bushes and trees. They had not the slightest doubt that this was the vanguard of the Northern army which they heard was ten thousand strong, and that this force was merely a vanguard for McDowell, who had nearly forty thousand men. But they knew too well to go back to Stonewall Jackson with mere surmise, however plausible.
“We’ve got to find out some way or other whether their army is certainly at hand,” whispered Dalton.
Harry nodded, and said:
“We must manage to overhear some of their talk, though it’s risky business.”
“But that’s what we’re here for. They don’t seem to be very watchful, and as the woods and bushes are thick about ’em we may get a chance.”
They continued their slow and careful descent. Harry glanced back once through an opening in the bushes and saw little Billy, holding the reins of the three horses and gazing intently after them. He knew that among all the soldiers of Jackson’s army, no matter how full of valor and zeal they might be, there was not one who surpassed Billy in eagerness to serve.
They reached the bottom of the slope, and lay for a few minutes hidden among dense bushes. Both had been familiar with country life, they had hunted the ‘possum and the coon many a dark night, and now their forest lore stood them in good stead. They made no sound as they passed among the bushes and trailing vines, and they knew that they were quite secure in their covert, although they lay within a hundred yards of one of the fires.
Harry judged that most of the men whom they saw were city bred. It was an advantage that the South had over the North in a mighty war, waged in a country covered then mostly with forest and cut by innumerable rivers and creeks, that her sons were familiar with such conditions, while many of those of the North, used to life in the cities, were at a loss, when the great campaigns took them into the wilderness.
Both he and Dalton, relying upon this knowledge, crept a little closer, but they stopped and lay very close, when they saw a man advancing to a hillock, carrying under his arm a bundle which they took to be rockets.
“Signals,” whispered Dalton. “You just watch, Harry, and you’ll see ’em answered from the eastward.”
The officer on the summit of the hillock sent up three rockets, which curved beautifully against the blue heavens, then sank and died. Far to the eastward they saw three similar lights flame and die.
“How far away would you say those answering rockets were?” whispered Harry.
“It’s hard to say about distances in the moonlight, but they may be three or four miles. I take it, Harry, that they are sent up by the Northern main force.”