“Captain Lester,” he said, “suppose that you and I ride to the crest of the hill.  You have strong glasses, so have I, and we may see something worth while.  The men will ride on, but we can easily overtake them.”

“Not a bad idea, Haskell,” said the captain, still in that slightly patronizing tone.  “I judge by your speech that you’re a well educated man, and you appear to think.”

They rode quickly to the summit, and Lester, putting his glasses to his eyes, gazed westward over a vast expanse of cultivated country.  But Harry looking immediately down the slope, saw the forest that he wished.

Lester swept the glasses in a wide circle, looking for Union troops.  His own troop was about a hundred yards ahead and the hoofbeats were growing fainter.  Then Harry’s courage almost failed him, but necessity was instant and cruel.  Still he modified the blow, nor did he use any weapon, save one that nature had given him.

“Look out!” he cried, and as Lester turned in astonishment he struck him on the point of the jaw.  Even as his fist flashed forward he held back a little and his full strength was not in the blow.

Nevertheless it was sufficient to strike Lester senseless, and he slid from his horse.  Harry caught him by the shoulder and eased him in his fall.  Then he lay stretched on his back in the grass like one asleep, with his horse staring at him.  Harry knew that he would revive in a minute or two, and with a “Farewell, Captain Lester,” he galloped down the slope and into the covering woods.

He knew that Lester’s men, finding that they did not follow, would quickly come back, and he raced his horse among the trees as fast as he dared.  A couple of miles between him and the hill and he felt safe, at least so far as the troop of Captain Lester was concerned.  Fortune seemed to have made him a favorite again, but he knew that dangers were still as thick around him as leaves in Vallombrosa.

He tied his horse, climbed a tree, and used his glasses.  Two miles to the west the bright sun flashed on long lines of mounted men, obviously the horsemen of Pleasanton.  How was he to get through that cavalry screen and reach Lee?  He did not see a way, but he knew that to find, one must seek.  His desire to get through, intense as it always had been, was now doubled.  He not only carried the news to Lee about the possible ford, but he also bore Meade’s dispatch to Pleasanton, directing a movement which, if successful, must be most dangerous to the Army of Northern Virginia.

He descended the tree and waited a while in the forest.  He found a spring at which he drank, and he filled the canteen.  It was a precious canteen with the name of John Haskell engraved upon it, and he meant that it should carry him through all dangers into his camp.  But he did not mean to use it yet.  If he rode into Pleasanton’s ranks they would merely take his letter to the general, and that would be the failure of his real mission.