“Yes.  Under no circumstances must the feelings of those two young men be hurt,” laughed Colonel Winchester.

“And Sergeant Whitley, too?  He’s probably the best scout in our army.  He can follow a trail where there is no trail.  He can see in the pitchy dark, and he can hear the leaves falling.”

“High recommendations, but they’re almost true.  Take the sergeant by all means.  I fancy you’ll need him.”

The whole party numbered about a dozen, and Shepard was the guide.  It was dismounted, of course, as the first slope they intended to carry was too steep for a horse to climb.  They were also heavily armed, it being absolutely certain that Southern riflemen were on Massanutton Mountain.

Dick and Shepard were in the lead, and, climbing up at a sharp angle, they quickly disappeared from the view of those below.  It was as if night and the wilderness had blotted them out, but every member of the little party felt relief and actual pleasure in the expedition.  Something mysterious and unknown lay before them, and they were anxious to find out what it was.

Shepard whispered to Dick of the care that they must take against their foes, and Warner whispered to Pennington that the mountain was really fine, although finer ridges could be found in Vermont.

Two hundred yards up, and Shepard, touching Dick’s shoulder, pointed to the valley.  The whole party stopped and looked back.  Although themselves buried in brown foliage they saw the floor of the valley all the way to the mountains on the other side, and it was a wonderful sight, with its two opposing lines of camp fires that shot up redly and glowed across the fields.  Now and then they saw figures of men moving against a crimson background, but no sound of the armies came to them.  Peace and silence were yet supreme on the mountain.

“It makes you feel that you’re not only above it in the body, but that you are not a part of it at all,” said Shepard.

Dick was not surprised at his words.  He had learned long since that the spy was an uncommon man, much above most of those who followed his calling.

“It gives me a similar feeling of detachment,” he said, “but we know just the same that they’re going to fight again tomorrow, and that we’ll probably be in the thick of it.  I hope, Mr. Shepard, that our victory yesterday marks the beginning of the end.”

“I think it does, Mr. Mason.  If we clean up the valley, and we’ll do it, Lee’s flank and Richmond will be exposed.  He’ll have to come out of his trenches then, and that will give Grant a chance to attack him with an overwhelming force.  The Confederacy is as good as finished, but I’ve never doubted the result for a moment.”

“I’ve worried a little at times.  It seemed to me now and then that all those big defeats in Virginia might make our people too weary to go on.  Why is that light flaring so high on Fisher’s Hill?”