“And so it was Slade!” said the Colonel.

“Undoubtedly, sir,” said Dick.  “I saw him plainly, and so did Sergeant Whitley.”

“I’m not sorry he’s here,” said Colonel Winchester thoughtfully, “and I hope the story that he and Skelly have joined bands is true, because if they are in this region they’re so far away from Pendleton that your people are safe from mischief at their hands.”

“I hadn’t thought of it in that way, sir, but it’s just as you say.  I’d rather have to fight them here than have them attacking our innocent people at home.  In the early part of the war Skelly called himself a Unionist, did he not?”

“Yes, and he may do so yet, but names are nothing to him.  He’d rob, and murder, too, with equal zest under either flag.”

“It’s so,” said Dick, and he felt the full truth as he thought of Pendleton, and his beautiful young mother, alone in her house, save for the gigantic and faithful Juliana.  But Juliana was an armed host herself, and Dick smiled at the recollection of the strong and honest black face that had bent over him so often.  He prayed without words that these ruthless guerrillas, no matter what flag they bore, should never come to Pendleton.

“I don’t think our column on its present march need fear anything from Slade and his band,” said Colonel Winchester.  “Such as he can operate only from ambush, and so far as Virginia is concerned, in the mountains.  Shepard says we’ll be out of the pass in another hour, and by that time it will be day.  I’ll be glad, too, as the cold rain and the darkness and the long ride are beginning to affect the men.”

The column resumed its march, Dick rode by the side of Colonel Winchester.  Time, propinquity, genuine esteem, and a fourth influence which Dick did not as yet suspect, were fast knitting these two, despite the difference in age, into a friendship which nothing could break.  The meeting with Slade was forgotten quickly, by all except those concerned, and by most of those too, so vast was the war and so little space did it afford for the memory of brief events.  Yet it lingered a while with Dick.  Twice now he had met Slade and he felt that he would meet him yet again at points far apart.

Dawn came slow and gray in a cloudy sky, but the sun soon broke through.  The heat returned and the earth began to dry.  The three colonels felt it necessary to give their men rest and food, and let them dry their uniforms, which had become wet in many cases, despite their overcoats and heavy cloaks.

They were now in a deep cove of the great Valley of Virginia, with the steep mountains just behind them, and far beyond the dim blue outline of other mountains enclosing it on the west.  As the fires blazed up and the men made coffee and cooked their breakfasts, Dick’s heart leaped.  This was the great valley once more, where so much history had been made.  Lee and Grant were deadlocked in the trenches before Petersburg, but here in the valley history would be made again.  It was the finest part of Virginia, the greatest state of the Confederacy, and Dick knew in his heart that some heavy blows would soon be struck, where fields already had been won and lost in desperate strife.