steep mountains, deep ravines and hard
mathematics."

They had been speaking in low tones, but now they ceased entirely.
Shepard had come back from the forest, reporting that the junction of the
roads was near, and the Confederate force was marching toward it at the
utmost speed.

The hostile columns might be in conflict in a half hour now, and the men
prepared themselves. Innumerable battles and skirmishes could never keep
their hearts from beating harder when it became evident that they were to
go under fire once more. After the few orders necessary, there was no
sound save that of the march itself. Meanwhile the moon and stars were
doing full duty, and the night remained as bright as ever.

CHAPTER IV

THE FIGHT AT THE CROSSWAYS

Colonel Hertford was near the head of the Union column, while the three
youths rode a little farther back with Colonel Winchester, the regiment
of Colonel Bedford bringing up the rear. Just behind Dick was Sergeant
Whitley, mounted upon a powerful bay horse. The sergeant had shown
himself such a woodsman and scout, and he was so valuable in these
capacities that Colonel Winchester had practically made him an aide,
and always kept him near for orders.

Dick noticed now that the sergeant leaned a little forward in his saddle
and was using his eyes and ears with all the concentration of the great
plainsman that he was. In that attitude he was a formidable figure, and,
though he lacked the spy's subtlety and education, he seemed to have much
in common with Shepard.

As for Dick himself his nerves had not been so much on edge since he went
into his first battle, nor had his heart beat so hard, and he knew it
was because Harry Kenton and those comrades of his would be at the
convergence of the roads, and they would meet, not in the confused
conflict of a great battle, when a face might appear and disappear the
next second, but man to man with relatively small numbers. The moon
was dimmed a little by fleecy clouds, but the silvery color, instead of
vanishing was merely softened, and when Dick looked back at the Union
column it, like the troop of the South, had the quality of a ghostly
train. But the clouds floated away and then the light gleamed on the
barrels of the short carbines that the horsemen carried. From a point on
the other side of the forest came the softened notes of a trumpet and the
great pulse in Dick's throat leaped. Only a few minutes more and they
would