“An’ what, Seth?”
“Do you see that grove straight toward the north four or five hundred yards away?”
“Yes, but I can make nothing of it but a black blur. It’s too far away to tell the trunks of the trees apart.”
“It’s too fur fur me, too, an’ my eyes are good, but ten or fifteen minutes ago, leftenant, I thought I saw a shadder at the edge of the grove. It ‘peared to me that the shadder was like that of a horse with a man on it. After a while it went back among the trees an’ o’ course I lost it thar.”
“You feel quite sure you saw the shadow, Seth?”
“Yes, leftenant. I’m shore I ain’t mistook. I’ve hunted ‘coons an’ ‘possums at night too much to be mistook about shadders. I reckon, if I may say so, shadders is my specialty, me bein’ somethin’ o’ a night owl. As shore as I’m standin’ here, leftenant, and as shore as you’re settin’ there on your hoss, a mounted man come to the edge of that wood an’ stayed thar a while, watchin’ us. I’d have follered him, but I couldn’t leave my beat here, an’ you’re the first officer I’ve saw since. It may amount to nothin, an’ then again it mayn’t.”
“I’m glad you told me. I’ll go into the grove myself and see if anybody is there now.”
“Leftenant, if I was you I’d be mighty keerful. If it’s a spy it’ll be easy enough for him under the cover of the trees to shoot you in the open comin’ toward him.”
Harry knew that Jackson planned a surprise of some kind and Seth Moore’s words about the mounted man alarmed him. He did not doubt the accuracy of the young mountaineer’s eyesight, or his coolness, and he resolved that he would not go back to headquarters until he knew more about that “shadow.” But Moore’s advice about caution was not to be unheeded.
“If you keep in the edge of our woods here,” said Moore, “an’ ride along a piece you’ll come to a little valley. Then you kin go up that an’ come into the grove over thar without being seed.”
“Good advice. I’ll take it.”
Harry loosened one of the pistols in his belt and rode cautiously through the wood as Seth Moore had suggested. The ground sloped rapidly, and soon he reached the narrow but deep little valley with a dense growth of trees and underbrush on either side. The valley led upward, and he came into the grove just as Moore had predicted.
This forest was of much wider extent than he had supposed. It stretched northward further than he could see, and, although it was devoid of undergrowth, it was very dark among the trees. He rode his horse behind the trunk of a great oak, and, pausing there, examined all the forest within eyeshot.
He saw nothing but the long rows of tree trunks, white on the northern side with snow, and he heard nothing but the cold rustle of wind among boughs bare of branches. Yet he had full confidence in the words of Seth Moore. He could neither see him nor hear him, but he was sure that somebody besides himself was in the wood. Once more the soul and spirit of his great ancestor were poured into him, and for the moment he, too, was the wilderness rover, endowed with nerves preternaturally acute.
Hidden by the great tree trunks he listened attentively. His horse, oppressed by the cold and perhaps by the weariness of the day, was motionless and made no sound. He waited two or three minutes and then he was sure that he heard a slight noise, which he believed was made by the hoofs of a horse walking very slowly. Then he saw the shadow.
It was the dim figure of a man on horseback, moving very cautiously at some distance from Harry. He urged his own horse forward a little, and the shadow stopped instantly. Then he knew that he had been seen, and he sat motionless in the saddle for an instant or two, not knowing what to do.
After all, the man on horseback might be a friend. He might be some scout from a band of rangers, coming to join Jackson; and not yet sure that the army in the woods was his. Recovering from his indecision he rode forward a little and called:
“Who are you?”
The shadow made no reply, and horse and rider were motionless. They seemed for an instant to be phantoms, but then Harry knew that they were real. He was oppressed by a feeling of the weird and menacing. He would make the sinister figure move and his hand dropped toward his pistol belt.
“Stop, I can fire before you!” cried the figure sharply, and then Harry suddenly saw a pistol barrel gleaming across the stranger’s saddle bow.
Harry checked his hand, but he did not consider himself beaten by any means. He merely waited, wary and ready to seize his opportunity.
“I don’t want to shoot,” said the man in a clear voice, “and I won’t unless you make me. I’m no friend. I’m an enemy, that is, an official enemy, and I think it strange, Harry Kenton, almost the hand of fate, that you and I come face to face again under such circumstances.”
Harry stared, and then the light broke. Now he remembered both the voice and the figure.
“Shepard!” he exclaimed.
“It’s so. We’re engaged upon the same duty. I’ve just been inspecting the army of General Jackson, calculating its numbers, its equipment, and what it may do. Keep your hand away from that pistol. I might not hit you, but the chances are that I would. But as I said, I don’t want to shoot. It wouldn’t help our cause or me any to maim or kill you. Suppose we call it peace between us for this evening.”
“I agree to call it peace because I have to do it.”
Shepard laughed, and his laugh was not at all sarcastic or unpleasant.
“Why a rage to kill?” he said. “You and I, Harry Kenton, will find before this war is over that we’ll get quite enough of fighting in battles without seeking to make slaughter in between. Besides, having met you several times, I’ve a friendly feeling for you. Now turn and ride back to your own lines and I’ll go the other way.”
The blood sprang into Harry’s face and his heart beat hard. There was something dominating and powerful in the voice. It now had the tone of a man who spoke to one over whom he ruled. Yet he could do nothing. He saw that Shepard was alert and watchful. He felt instinctively that his foe would fire if he were forced to do so and that he would not miss. Then despite himself, he felt admiration for the man’s skill and power, and a pronounced intellectual quality that he discovered in him.
“Very well,” he replied, “I’ll turn and go back, but I want to tell you, Mr. Shepard, that while you have been estimating what General Jackson’s army can do you must make that estimate high.”
“I’ve already done so,” called Shepard—Harry was riding away as he spoke. The boy at the edge of the wood looked back, but the shadow was already gone. He rode straight across the open and Seth Moore met him.
“Did you find anything?” the young mountaineer asked.
“Yes, there was a mounted man in a blue uniform, a spy, who has been watching, but he made off. You had good eyes, Seth, and I’m going to report this at once to General Jackson.”
Harry knew that he was the bearer of an unpleasant message. General Jackson was relying upon surprise, and it would not please him to know that his movements were watched by an active and intelligent scout or spy. But the man had already shown his greatness by always insisting upon hearing the worst of everything.
He found the chief, still sitting before one of the fires and reported to him fully. Jackson listened without comment, but at the end he said to two of the brigadiers who were sitting with him:
“We march again at earliest dawn. We will not wait for the wagons.”
Then he added to Harry:
“You’ve done good service. Join the sleepers, there.”
He pointed to a group of young officers rolled in their blankets, and Harry obeyed quickly.
CHAPTER IV. WAR AND WAITING
Harry