self rode at their head. They
knew how to follow.

The moon faded and many of the stars went back into infinite space. A
dusky film was drawn across the sky, and at a distance the fields and
forest blended into one great shadow. Harry looked back at the brigade
which wound in a long dark coil among the trees. He could not see faces
of the men now, only the sinuous black shape of illimitable length that
their solid lines made.

This long black shape moved fast, and occasionally it gave forth a
sinister glitter, as stray moonbeams fell upon blade or bayonet. It
seemed to Harry that there was something deadly and inevitable about it,
and he began to feel sorry for the Union troops who were besieging the
village and who did not know that Stonewall Jackson was coming.

He cast a sidelong glance at the leader. He rode, leaning a little
further forward in the saddle than usual, and the wintry blue eyes gazed
steadily before him. Harry knew that they missed nothing.

"You are sure that we are on the right road, Mr. Kenton?" said Jackson.

"Quite sure of it, sir."

The general did not speak again for some time. Then, when he caught the
faint glimmer of water through the dark, he said:

"This is the creek, is it not?"

"Yes, sir, and the Yankees can't be more than a mile away."

"And it's a full hour until dawn. The reinforcements for the enemy
cannot have come up. Lieutenant Kenton, I wish you to stay with me. I
will have a messenger tell Colonel Talbot that for the present you are
detached for my service."

"Thank you, sir," said Harry.

"Why?"

"I wish to see how you crumple up the enemy."

The cold blue eyes gleamed for a moment. Harry more than guessed the
depths of passion and resolve that lay behind the impenetrable mask
of Jackson's face. He felt again the rays of the white, hot fire that
burned in the great Virginian's soul.

A few hundred yards further and the brigade began to spread out in the
dusk. Companies filed off to right and left, and in a few minutes came
shots from the pickets, sounding wonderfully clear and sharp in the
stillness of the night. Red dots from the rifle muzzles appeared
here and there in the woods, and then Harry caught the glint of late
starshine on the eaves of the warehouse.

Jackson drew his horse a little to one side of the road, and Harry,
obedient to orders, followed him. A regiment massed directly behind them
drew up close. Harry saw that it was his own Invincibles. Th