The road now curved a little to the left, and a few hundred yards ahead another from the east merged with it.  Along this road the forest was thinner, and upon it, but some distance away, he saw bobbing heads in caps, twenty, perhaps, in number.  He knew at once that they were the enemy, called by the signal, and leaning forward he spoke in the ear of his good horse.

“You and I haven’t known each other long,” he said, “but we’re good friends.  I paid honest and sufficient money for you, when I could have ridden away on you without paying a cent.  I know you have a powerful frame and that your speed is great.  I really believe you’re the fastest runner in all this part of the state.  Now, prove it!”

The horse stretched out his neck, and the road flew behind him, his body working like a mighty machine perfectly attuned, even to its minutest part.  Harry’s words had met a true response.  He heard a cry on the cross road, and the bobbing heads came forward much faster.  Either they had seen him or they had heard the swift beat of his horse’s hoofs.  Loud shouts arose, but he saw the uniforms of the men, and he knew that they belonged to the Northern army.

He went past the junction of the roads, as if he were flying, but he was not a bit too soon, as he heard the crack of rifles, and bullets struck in the earth behind him.  He knew that they would follow, hang on persistently, but he had supreme confidence in the speed and strength of his horse, and youth rode triumphant.  It was youth more than anything else that made him raise himself a little in his saddle, look back to his pursuers and fling to them a long, taunting cry, just as Henry Ware more than once had taunted his Indian pursuers before disappearing in a flight that their swiftest warriors could not match.

But the little band of Union troopers clung to the chase.  They too had good horses, and they knew that the man before them was a Southern messenger, and in those hot July days of 1863 all military messages carried on the roads north of the Potomac were important.  The fate of an army or a nation might turn upon any one of them, and the lieutenant who led the little Union troop was aware of it.  He was a man of intelligence and a consuming desire to overtake the lone horseman lay hold of him.  He knew, as well as any general, that since Gettysburg the fate of the South was verily trembling in the balance, and the slightest weight somewhere might decide the scales.  So he resolved to hang on through everything and the chances were in his favor.  It was his own country.  The Federal troops were everywhere, and any moment he might have aid in cutting off the fugitive.

When Harry eased his horse’s flight he saw the troop, very distant but still pursuing, and he read the mind of the Union leader.  He was saving his mounts, trailing merely, in the hope that Harry would exhaust his own horse, after which he and his men would come on at great speed.