“It ain’t no use,” he said, although his tone was gentle, and in a way sympathetic.  “After all, it’s your own fault.  You blundered right in our way, an’ we had to take you for fear you’d see us, an’ give the alarm.  It was your unlucky chance.  You’d give a million dollars if you had it to slip out of our hands and tell Ulysses Grant that Albert Sidney Johnston with his whole army is layin’ in the woods right alongside of him, ready to jump on his back at dawn, an’ he not knowin’ it.”

“I would,” said Dick fervently.

“An’ so would I if I was in your place.  Just think, Mr. Mason, that of all the hundreds of thousands of men in the Northern armies, of all the twenty or twenty-five million people on the Northern side, there’s just one, that one a boy, and that boy you, who knows that Albert Sidney Johnston is here.”

“Held fast as I am, I’m sorry now that I do know it.”

“I can’t say that I blame you.  I said you’d give a million dollars to be able to tell, but if you’re to measure such things with money it would be worth a hundred million an’ more, yes, it would be cheap at three or four hundred millions for the North to know it.  But, after all, you can’t measure such things with money.  Maybe you think I talk a heap, but I’m stirred some, too.”

They rode on a little farther over the hilly ground, covered with thick forest or dense, tall scrub.  But there were troops, troops, everywhere, and now and then the batteries.  They were mostly boys, like their antagonists of the North, and the sleep of most of them was the sleep of exhaustion, after a forced and rapid march over heavy ground from Corinth.  But Dick knew that they would be fresh in the morning when they rose from the forest, and rushed upon their unwarned foe.

CHAPTER XIV

THE DARK EVE OF SHILOH

Dick noticed as they went further into the forest how complete was the concealment of a great army, possible only in a country wooded so heavily, and in the presence of a careless enemy.  The center was like the front of the Southern force.  Not a fire burned, not a torch gleamed.  The horses were withdrawn so far that stamp or neigh could not be heard by the Union pickets.

“We’ll stop here,” said Robertson at length.  “As you’re a Kentuckian, I thought it would be pleasanter for you to be handed over to Kentuckians.  The Orphan Brigade to which I belong is layin’ on the ground right in front of us, an’ the first regiment is that of Colonel Kenton.  I’ll hand you over to him, an’—­not ’cause I’ve got anything ag’inst you—­I’ll be mighty glad to do it, too, ’cause my back is already nigh breakin’ with the responsibility.”

Dick started violently.

“What’s hit you?” asked Robertson.

“Oh, nothing.  You see, I’m nervous.”

“You ain’t tellin’ the truth.  But I don’t blame you an’ it don’t matter anyway.  Here we are.  Jump down.”