"General Lee didn't send you here to get killed," he said. "He wants you
instead to report how many of us get killed. You know that while the
general is a kind man he can be stern, too, and you're not to take the
risk. The orderly is behind that hill with your horse and mine."
Harry, with a sigh, fell back toward the hill. But he did not yet go
behind it, where the orderly stood. Instead he lay down among the trees
on the slope, where he could watch what was going forward, and once more
his face turned to the likeness of the great Indian fighter.
He saw Sherburne's dismounted troop and others, perhaps five hundred in
all, moving slowly among the bushes parallel with the stream, and he saw
a force which he surmised to be of about equal size, creeping along in
the undergrowth on the other side. He followed both bodies with his
glasses. With long looking everything became clearer and clearer.
The moonlight had to him almost the brilliancy of day.
His eyes followed the Union force, until it came to a point where the
creek ran shallow over pebbles. Then the Union leader raised his sword,
uttered a cry of command, and the whole force dashed at the ford.
The cry met its response in an order from Sherburne, and the thickets
flamed with the Southern rifles.
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