Harry was silent.  His acute ears brought him the sound of Haskell moving a little in his own particular hollow.  The lonesome owl hooted twice more, but there was no sound to betoken the approach of Union troops in the forest.  The duel of weapons and wits would have to be fought out alone by Haskell and himself.

He went over everything again and again and he concluded that he must rely upon his superior keenness of ear.  He could hear Haskell, but Haskell could not hear him, and there was Providence once more taking him into favor.  Summer clouds began to drift before the moon, and many of the stars were veiled.  It was possible that Haskell’s eyes also were not as keen as his own.

When the darkness increased, he began to crawl from the little shallow.  Despite extreme precautions he made a slight noise.  A pistol flashed and a bullet passed over him.  It made his muscles quiver, but he called in a calm voice: 

“Why did you do such a foolish thing as that?  You wasted a perfectly good bullet.”

“Weren’t you trying to escape?  I thought I heard a movement in the grass.”

“Wasn’t thinking of such a thing.  I’m just waiting here to see what you’ll do.  Why don’t you come on and attack?”

“I’m satisfied with things as they are.  I’ll hold you until morning and then our men will be sure to come and pick you up.”

“Maybe it will be our men who will come and pick you up.”

“Oh, no; they’re too busy leaving Gettysburg behind ’em.”

Harry nevertheless had succeeded in leaving the shallow and was now lying on its farther bank.  Then he resumed the task of crawling forward on his face, and without making any noise, one of the most difficult feats that a human being is ever called upon to do.

At the end of a dozen feet, he paused both to rest and to listen.  His acute ears told him that Haskell had not moved from his own place, and his eyes showed him that the darkness was increasing.  Those wonderful, kindly clouds were thickening before the moon, and the stars in troops were going out of sight.

But he did not relax his caution.  He knew that he could not afford to make any sound that would arouse the suspicions of Haskell, and it was a quarter of an hour before he felt himself absolutely safe.  Then he passed around a big tree and arose behind its trunk, appreciating what a tremendous luxury it was to be a man and to stand upon one’s own feet.

He had triumphed again!  The stars surely were with him.  They might play little tricks upon him now and then to tantalize him, but in the more important matters they were on his side.  He stretched himself again and again to relieve the terrible stiffness caused by such long and painful crawling, and then, unable to resist an exultant impulse, he called loudly: 

“Good-by, Haskell!”

There was a startled exclamation and a bullet fired at random cut the leaves twenty yards away.  Harry, making no reply, fled swiftly through the forest toward the valley where the rebel raiders rode.