re difficulty in crossing it means more danger of our
destruction, and our destruction would mean the end of the Confederacy."

He spoke with deadly earnestness as he continued to look at the tiny
dusky spot on the western sky. Harry had a feeling of awe. Again he
realized that such mighty issues could turn upon a single hair. The
increase or decrease of that black splotch might mean the death or life
of the Confederacy. As he rode he watched it.

His heart sank slowly. The little baby cloud, looking so harmless,
was growing. He said to himself in anger that it was not, but he knew
that it was. Black at the center, it radiated in every direction until
it became pale gray at the edges, and by and by, as it still spread,
it gave to the southwest an aspect that was distinctly sinister.

Sherburne shook his head and the gravity of his face increased. As the
cloud grew alarm grew with it in his mind.

"Maybe it will pass," said Harry hopefully.

"I don't think so. It's not moving away. It just hangs there and grows
and grows. You're a woodsman, Harry, and you ought to feel it. Don't
you think the atmosphere has changed?"

"I didn't have the courage to say so until you asked me, but it's damper.
If I were posing as a prophet I should say that we're going to have rain."

"And so should I. Usually at this period of the year in our country we
want rain, but now we dread it like a pestilence. At any other time the
Potomac could rise or fall, whenever it pleased, for all I cared, but now
it's life and death."

"Our doubts are decided and we've lost. Look, sir the whole southwest is
dark now!"

"And here come the first drops!"

Sherburne sent hurried orders among the men to keep their ammunition and
weapons dry, and then they bent their heads to the storm which would beat
almost directly in their faces. Soon it came without much preliminary
thunder and lightning. The morning that had been warm turned cold and
the rain poured hard upon them. Most of the horsemen were wet through in
a short time, and they shivered in their sodden uniforms, but it was a
condition to which they were used, and they thought little of themselves
but nearly all the while of the Potomac.

Few words were spoken. The only sounds were the driving of the rain and
the thud of many hoofs in the mud. Harry often saw misty figures among
the trees on the hills, and he knew that they were watched by hostile
eyes as the Northern armies i