“Down, men! Down!” cried Captain Sherburne, as he ran along the line. “They’ll open fire from the wood!”
All the defenders threw themselves upon the ground and lay there, much less exposed and also concealed partly. One edge of the wood ran within two hundred yards of the warehouse, and presently the Northern soldiers, hidden behind the trees at that point, opened a heavy rifle fire. Bullets whistled over the heads of the defenders, and kept up a constant patter upon the walls of the warehouse, but did little damage.
A few of the men in gray had been killed, and all the wounded were taken inside the warehouse, into which the great tobacco barn had been turned. Two competent surgeons attended to them by the light of candles, while the garrison outside lay still and waiting under the heavy fire.
“A waste of lead,” said Sherburne to Harry. “They reckon, perhaps, that we’re all recruits, and will be frightened into retreat or surrender.”
“If we had those guns now we could clear out the woods in short order,” said Harry.
“And if they had ’em they could soon blow up this barn, everything in it and a lot of us at the same time. So we are more than even on the matter of the lack of guns.”
The fire from the wood died in about fifteen minutes and was succeeded by a long and trying silence. The light of the moon deepened, and silvered the faces of the dead lying in the open. All the survivors of the attack were hidden, but the defenders knew that they were yet in the forest.
“Kenton,” said Captain Sherburne, “you know the way to General Jackson’s camp at Winchester.”
“I’ve been over it a dozen times.”
“Then you must mount and ride. This force is sitting down before us for a siege, and it probably has pickets about the village, but you must get through somehow. Bring help! The Yankees are likely to send back for help, too, but we’ve got to win here.”
“I’m off in five minutes,” said Harry, “and I’ll come with a brigade by dawn.”
“I believe you will,” said Sherburne. “But get to Old Jack! Get there! If you can only reach him, we’re saved! He may not have any horsemen at hand, but his foot cavalry can march nearly as fast! Lord, how Stonewall Jackson can cover ground!”
Their hands met in the hearty grasp of a friendship which was already old and firm, and Harry, without looking back, slipped into the wood, where the men from the village were watching over the horses. Sherburne had told him to take any horse he needed, but he chose his own, convinced that he had no equal, slipped into the saddle, and rode to the edge of the wood.
“There’s a creek just back of us; you can see the water shining through the break in the trees,” said a man who kept the village store. “The timber’s pretty thick along it, and you’d best keep in its shelter. Here, you Tom, show him the way.”
A boy of fourteen stepped up to the horse’s head.
“My son,” said the storekeeper. “He knows every inch of the ground.”
But Harry waved him back.
“No,” he said. “I’ll be shot at, and the boy on foot can’t escape. I’ll find my way through. No, I tell you he must not go!”
He almost pushed back the boy who was eager for the task, rode out of the wood which was on the slope of the hill away from the point of attack, and gained the fringe of timber along the creek. It was about fifty yards from cover to cover, but he believed he had not been seen, as neither shout nor shot followed him.
Yet the Union pickets could not be far away. He had seen enough to know that the besiegers were disciplined men led by able officers and they would certainly make a cordon about the whole Southern position.
He rode his horse into a dense clump of trees and paused to listen. He heard nothing but the faint murmur of the creek, and the occasional rustle of dry branches as puffs of wind passed. He dismounted for the sake of caution and silence as far as possible, and led his horse down the fringe of trees, always keeping well under cover.