“Other men than our own are moving in the forest.  I can hear the tread of horses’ hoofs on the dry leaves and twigs at the far edge.  Our scouts should meet them in a moment or two.”

It came as the sergeant had predicted, and Dick saw a tiny flash of fire, not much larger than a pink dot in the woods, heard the sharp report of a rifle and then the crack of another rifle in reply.  Silence followed for an instant, but it was evident that the hostile forces were in touch and then in another moment or two the horses of the scouts crashed in the brush, as they rode back to the main column.  They had seen enough.

Colonel Hertford gave the order and the entire Union force now advanced at a gallop.  Through the woods, narrowing so rapidly, came the swift beat of hoofs on the other side, and it was apparent that coincidence would bring the two forces to the point of convergence at the same time.  The moonlight seemed to Dick to grow so bright and intense that it had almost the quality of sunlight.  Nature, in the absence of day, was making the field of battle as light as possible.

“What’s the lay of the land at the point of meeting?” he whispered hurriedly to Shepard who had ridden up by his side.

“Almost level,” came the quick response.

A few more rapid hoofbeats and the shrouding woods between disappeared.  One column saw another column, both clad in the moonlight, in Dick’s fancy, all in silver mail.  The two forces wheeled and faced each other across the open space, their horses staring with red eyes, and the men looking intently at their opponents.  Both were oppressed for an instant or two by a deep and singular silence.

Dick’s eyes swept fearfully along the gray column of the South, and he saw the one whom he did not wish to see—­at least not there—­Harry Kenton himself, sitting on his bay horse with his friends around him.  The two elderly men must be Colonel Leonidas Talbot and Lieutenant-Colonel Hector St. Hilaire, and the three youths beside Harry were surely St. Clair, Langdon and Dalton.

As he looked, Colonel Leonidas Talbot raised his sword, and at the same time came the sharp command of Colonel Hertford.  Rifles and carbines flashed from either side across the open space, and two streams of bullets crossed.  In an instant the silver of the moonlight was hidden by clouds of smoke through which flashed the fire from hundreds of rifles and carbines.  All around Dick’s ears was the hissing sound of bullets, like the alarm from serpents.

The fire at close range was so deadly to both sides that holes were smashed in the mounted ranks.  The shrill screams of wounded horses, far more terrible than the cries of wounded men, struck like knife points on the drums of Dick’s ears.  He saw Shepard’s horse go down, killed instantly by a heavy bullet, but the spy himself leaped clear, and then Dick lost him in the smoke.  A bullet grazed his own wrist and he glanced curiously at the thin trickle of blood that came from it.  Yet, forgetting it the next instant, he waved his saber above his head, and began to shout to the men.