led and knotted oaks were distorted and
the bushes, even in the flush of a May morning, were black and ugly.
At evening it was indescribably desolate, and save when the armies came
there was no sound but the lone cry of the whip-poor-will, one of the
saddest of all notes.

It was upon this forest that Harry looked, and he wondered, as many
officers much older and much higher in rank than he wondered, that
Hooker, with forces so much superior, should draw back into its shades.
And many of the Union generals, too, had protested in vain against
Hooker's orders. They knew, as the Confederate generals knew, that
Hooker was a brave man, and they never understood it then or afterwards.

"It gives us our chance," said Dalton, with sudden intuition, to Harry.
"We'll carry the battle to them in the forest, and there numbers will
not count so much."

"Look!" exclaimed Harry. "They're withdrawing farther into the
Wilderness. There go the last bayonets!"

"It's so," said Dalton. "I can still see a few of them moving among the
trees and thickets. Now they're all gone. What does it mean?"

"It means that Old Jack will follow into the Wilderness, as sure as you
and I are here. He isn't the man to let an enemy retreat in peace."

"That's so. There are the bugles calling, and it's time for us to
rejoin Old Jack."

Jackson was not more than a hundred yards away, and they were soon just
behind him, riding slowly forward, while he swept the forest with his
glasses. Riflemen sent far in advance began to fire, and from the
forest came replies. Harry saw bits of earth and grass kicked up by the
bullets, and now and then a man fell or, wounded, limped to the rear.
There was no fog here and the day had become beautiful and brilliant,
as became the first morning in May. The little white puffs of smoke
arose all along the edges of the Wilderness, and, sailing above the
trees and bushes, dissolved into the blue sky. It was yet only a
skirmish between the Southern vanguard and the Northern vanguard,
but the riflemen increased to hundreds and they made a steady volume of
sound. Now and then the lighter guns were fired and the like replied
from the thickets.

Harry gazed intently at Jackson. Would he with his relatively small
force follow Hooker into the Wilderness, despising the dangers of ambush
and the possibility that his foe might turn upon him in overwhelming
numbers? Lee was with the troops elsewhere, and Jackson for the