The Scouts of Stonewall | Page 5

and at a distance of about
four hundred yards. There was scattered undergrowth, enough to hide
him, but not enough to conceal those three hundred men who rode in
close files along a well-used road.
Harry soon saw the forest thinning ahead of him and then the trumpet
sang its mellow, golden note again. From a point perhaps a mile ahead
came a reply, also the musical call of the trumpet. Not an echo, but the
voice of a second trumpet, and now Harry knew that another force was
coming to join the first. All his pulses began to beat hard, not with
nervousness, but with intense eagerness to know what was afoot.
Evidently it must be something of importance or strong bodies of
Union cavalry would not be meeting in the woods in this manner.
After the reply neither trumpet sounded again, and the troop that Harry
was following stopped while yet in the woods. He rode his horse
behind a tall and dense clump of bushes, where, well hidden, he could
yet see all that might happen, and waited.

He heard in a few minutes the beat of many hoofs upon the hard road,
advancing with the precision and regularity of trained cavalry. He saw
the head of a column emerge upon the road and an officer ride forward
to meet the commander of the first troop. They exchanged a few words
and then the united force rode southward through the open woods, with
the watchful lad always hanging on their rear.
Harry judged that the new troop numbered about five hundred men, and
eight hundred cavalry would not march on any mere scouting
expedition. His opinion that this was a ride of importance now became
a conviction, and he hardened his purpose to follow them to the end, no
matter what the risk.
It was now about noon, and the sun became warm despite the
December day. The turf softened under the rays and the Union cavalry
left an immense wide trail through the forest. It was impossible to miss
it, and Harry, careful not to ride into an ambush of rear guard pickets,
dropped back a little, and also kept slightly to the left of the great trail.
He could not see the soldiers now, but occasionally he heard the deep
sound of so many hoofs sinking into the soft turf. Beyond that turfy
sigh no sound from the marching men came to him.
The Union troop halted about two o'clock in the afternoon, and the men
ate cold food from the knapsacks. They also rested a full hour, and
Harry, watching from a distance, felt sure that their lack of hurry
indicated a night attack of some kind. They had altered their course
slightly, twice, and when they started anew they did so a third time.
Now their purpose occurred suddenly to Harry. It came in a flash of
intuition, and he did not again doubt it for a moment. The head of the
column was pointed straight toward a tiny village in which food and
ammunition for Stonewall Jackson were stored. The place did not have
more than a dozen houses, but one of them was a huge tobacco barn
stuffed with powder, lead, medicines, which were already worth their
weight in gold in the Confederacy, and other invaluable supplies. It had
been planned to begin their removal on the morrow to the Southern
camp at Winchester, but it would be too late unless he intervened.

If he did not intervene! He, a boy, riding alone through the forest, to
defeat the energies of so many men, equipped splendidly! The
Confederacy was almost wholly agricultural, and was able to produce
few such supplies of its own. Nor could it obtain them in great
quantities from Europe as the Northern navy was drawing its belt of
steel about the Southern coasts. That huge tobacco barn contained a
treasure beyond price, and Harry was resolved to save it.
He did not yet know how he would save it, but he felt that he would.
All the courage of those border ancestors who won every new day of
life as the prize of skill and courage sprang up in him. It was no vain
heritage. Happy chance must aid those who trusted, and, taking a deep
curve to the left, he galloped through the woods. His horse
comparatively fresh after easy riding, went many miles without
showing any signs of weariness.
The boy knew the country well, and it was the object of his circuit to
take him ahead of the Union troop and to the village which held a small
guard of perhaps two hundred men. If the happy chance in which he
trusted should fail him after all, these men could carry off a part of the