expected to attack early in the morning.
Dick carried another dispatch to Sherman, who was only a little
more than two miles from them, and on his way back he joined Colonel
Winchester, who, with Warner, Pennington and a hundred infantry, had
come out for a scout. The dismounted men were chosen because they wished
to beat up a difficult piece of wooded country.

They went directly toward Jackson, advancing very cautiously through the
forest, the mounted officers riding slowly. The night was hot and dark,
moon and stars obscured by drifting clouds. Pennington, who was an
expert on weather, announced that another storm was coming.

"I can feel a dampness in the air," he said. "I'm willing to risk my
reputation as a prophet and say that the dawn will come with rain."

"I hope it won't be a big rain," said Colonel Winchester, "because if it
is it will surely delay our attack. Our supply of cartridges is small,
and we can't risk wetting them."

Pennington persisted that a storm was at hand. His father had taught
him, he said, always to observe the weather signs on the great Nebraska
plains. They were nearly always hoping for rain there, and he had
learned to smell it before it came. He could smell it now in the same
way here in Mississippi.

His opinion did not waver, when the clouds floated away for a while,
disclosing a faint moon and a few stars. They were now on the banks of a
brook, flowing through the wood, and Colonel Winchester thought he saw
a movement in the forest beyond it. It was altogether likely that so
skillful a leader as Joe Johnston would have out bodies of scouts, and
he stopped, bidding his men to take cover.

Dick sat on his horse by the colonel's side under the thick boughs of a
great tree, and studied the thickets before them. He, too, had noticed
a movement, and he was confident that the Southern sharpshooters were
there. At the command of the colonel all of the officers dismounted,
and orderlies took the horses to the rear. On foot they continued their
examination of the thickets, and the colonel sent for Sergeant Whitley,
who confirmed his opinion that the enemy was before them. At his
suggestion the Union force was spread out, lest it be flanked and
annihilated in the thickets.

Just as the movement was completed rifles began to crack in front and on
both flanks, and the piercing yell of the South arose.

It was impossible to tell the size of the force that assailed them, but
the Winches