Harry was in the group, but except in extreme emergency he would not be on duty that night, as he had already been twenty-four hours in the saddle.  Nevertheless he was not yet sleepy, and lying on his blanket, he watched the leaders confer, as they had conferred every other night since the Battle of Gettysburg.  He was aware, too, that the air was heavy with suspense and anxiety.  He breathed it in at every breath.  Cruel doubt was not shown by words or actions, but it was an atmosphere which one could not mistake.

Word had been brought in the afternoon by hard riders of Stuart that the Potomac was still rising.  It could not be forded and the active Northern cavalry was in between, keeping advanced parties of the Southern army from laying pontoons.  Every day made the situation more desperate, and it could not be hidden from the soldiers, who, nevertheless, marched cheerfully on, in the sublime faith that Lee would carry them through.

Harry knew that if the Army of the Potomac was not active in pursuit its cavalrymen and skirmishers were.  As on the night before, he heard the faint report of shots, and he knew that rough work was going forward along the doubtful line, where the fringes of the two armies almost met.  But hardened so much was he that he fell asleep while the generals were still in anxious council, and the fitful firing continued in the distant dark.

CHAPTER III

THE FLOODED RIVER

Harry and Dalton were aroused before daylight by Colonel Peyton of Lee’s staff, with instructions to mount at once, and join a strong detachment, ready to go ahead and clear a way.  Sherburne’s troop would lead.  The Invincibles, for whom mounts had been obtained, would follow.  There were fragments of other regiments, the whole force amounting to about fifteen hundred men, under the command of Sherburne, who had been raised the preceding afternoon to the rank of Colonel, and whose skill and valor were so well known that such veterans as Colonel Talbot and Lieutenant Colonel St. Hilaire were glad to serve under him.  Harry and Dalton would represent the commander-in-chief, and would return whenever Colonel Sherburne thought fit to report to him.

Harry was glad to go.  While he had his periods of intense thought, and his character was serious, he was like his great ancestor, essentially a creature of action.  His blood flowed more swiftly with the beat of his horse’s hoofs, and his spirits rose as the free air of the fields and forests rushed past him.  Moreover he was extremely anxious to see what lay ahead.  If barriers were there he wanted to look upon them.  If the Union cavalry were trying to keep them from laying bridges across the Potomac he wanted to help drive them away.

Harry and Dalton had a right as aides and messengers of Lee to ride with Sherburne, but before they joined him they rode among the Invincibles, who were in great feather, because they too, for the time being, rode, and toiled in neither dust nor mud.