Dick cautioned the men, and they lay as still as wild animals in their coverts.  In about ten minutes the two riflemen came back up the ravine, and the hidden troopers could hear them talking.

“We’ll try some other part of the slope, Jack,” said one.

“Yes, that was a bad view,” rejoined the other.  “We couldn’t tell a thing about the Yankee movements from down there.  We can leave the ravine higher up, and I know a path that leads toward the north.”

“There’s not much good in finding out about ’em anyway.  That fellow Sheridan is going to press us hard, and they have everything, numbers, arms, food, while we have next to nothing.”

“But we’ll fight ’em anyhow.  Still, I wish old Stonewall was here.”

“But he ain’t here, and we’ll have to do the best we can without him.”

Their voices were lost, as they passed up the ravine and disappeared.  Then Dick and his little party came out cautiously, and followed.

“I gather from what those two said that Early’s men are depressed,” said Dick.

“They’ve a right to be,” replied Shepard.  “Their army is in bad shape, besides being small, and now that we have a real leader we are, I think, sure to clean up the valley.”

“But there’ll be plenty of hard fighting.”

“Yes.  We’ll have to win what we get.”

The ravine widened and deepened a little, and they stopped.  Sergeant Whitley in his capacity of chief scout and trailer climbed up the rocky side and looked about a little, while the others waited.  He returned in two or three minutes, and Dick saw, by the moonlight, that his face expressed surprise.

“What is it, sergeant?” asked Dick.

“A woman is on the mountain.  She passed by the ravine not long since, perhaps not a half hour ago.”

“A woman at such a time?  Why, sergeant, it’s impossible!”

“No, sir, it isn’t.  See here!”

He opened his left hand.  Within the palm lay a tiny bit of thin gray cloth.

“There may not be more than a dozen threads here,” he said, “but I found ’em sticking to a thorn bush not twenty yards away.  A half hour ago they were a part of a woman’s dress.  A thorn bush grows among the cedars above.  She was in a hurry, and when her dress caught in it she jerked it loose.”

“But how do you know it was only a half hour or less ago?” asked Dick.

“Because she broke two ’or three of the thorns when she jerked, and it was so late that their wounds are still bleeding, that is, a faint bit of sap is oozing out at the fractures.”

“That sounds conclusive,” said Dick, “but likely it was a mountain woman who lives somewhere along the slope.”

The sergeant shook his head.

“No, sir, it was no mountain woman,” he said.  “When I found the cloth on the thorns I knelt and looked for a trail.  It’s hard ground mostly, but I thought I might find the trace of a footstep somewhere.  I found several, and not one of them was made by the flat, broad shoe that mountain women wear.  I found small rounded heel prints which the shoes worn by city women make.”