It was a great relief to be sure that his father had gone safely through Perryville, and that Dick Mason, although wounded there, was well again. His heart yearned over both. His devotion to his father had always been strong and Dick Mason had stood in the place of a brother. They were alive for the present at least, but Harry knew of the sinister threat that hung over the west. The terrible battle that was to be fought at Stone River was already sending forth its preliminary signals, and for a little while Harry thought more of those marching forces in Tennessee than of the great army to which he belonged and of the one yet more numerous that faced it.
But these thoughts could not last long. The events in which he was to have a part were too imminent and mighty for anyone to detach himself from them more than a few minutes. He quickly returned, heart and soul, to his duties, which in these days took all his time. Many messages were passing between Lee and Jackson and Longstreet and the commanders next to them in rank, and Harry carried his share.
A few days after the letter from Dr. Russell the cold abated considerably. The ice in the river broke, the melting snows made the country a sea of mud and slush and horses often became mired so deeply that it took a dozen soldiers to drag them out again. It was on such a day as this that Dalton came to him, his grave face wearing a look of importance.
“General Jackson has just told me,” he said, “to take you and join General Stuart, who is going with his horse to the neighborhood of Port Royal on the river.”
“What’s up?”
“Nothing’s up yet. But we understand that some of the Yankee gunboats are trying to get up, now that they have a clear passage through the ice.”
“Cavalry can’t stop them.”
“No, but Stuart is taking horse artillery with him, and he’s likely to make it warm for the enemy in the water. Harry, if we only had a navy, too, this war wouldn’t be doubtful.”
“But, as we haven’t got a navy, it is doubtful, very doubtful.”
They quickly joined General Stuart, who was eager for the duty, and falling in line with the troop of Sherburne rode swiftly toward Port Royal, the cavalrymen carrying with them several light guns.
As they galloped along, mixed mud and snow flew in every direction, but most of them had grown so used to it that they paid little attention. The river flowed a deep and somber stream, and all the hills about were yet white with snow. At that time, colored too, as it was by his feelings, it was the most sinister landscape that Harry had ever looked upon. Black winter and red war, neither of which spared, were allied against man.
But his pulses began to leap when they saw coils of black smoke blown a little to one side by the wind. He knew that the smoke came from gunboats. They must be endeavoring to land troops, and Stuart was no man to allow a detached force to pass the Rappahannock and appear in their rear.
As the cavalry burst into a gallop from the snowy forest Harry saw that he was right. A fleet of gunboats was gathered in the stream and on the far shore they were embarking troops. But his quick eye caught a horseman on their own side of the river who was galloping away. He was already too distant for a rifle shot, but Harry instinctively knew that it was Shepard. He had seen the man under such extraordinarily vivid circumstances that the set of his figure was familiar.
Nor was he surprised to behold Shepard now. He merely wondered that he had not seen him earlier, so great was his activity and daring, and he had no doubt that he had brought the gunboats and the Union troops warning that Stuart was coming. He was sure of it the moment the cavalry emerged from the woods, because one of the gunboats instantly turned loose with two heavy guns which sent shells whistling and screaming over their heads. Had they been a little better aimed they would have done much destruction, and Harry saw at once that they were going to have an ugly time with these saucy little demons of the water.