The
Confederacy was not beaten. A single defeat--no, it was not a defeat,
merely a failure to win--was not mortal, and as for the West, the
Confederacy would gather itself together there and overwhelm Grant!
Then came a new emotion, a kind of gratitude to Shepard. The man was
really a friend, and would do him a service, if it could be done, without
injuring his own cause! He could not feel any doubt of it, else the spy
would not have taken the risk to send him such a letter. He read it for
the last time, then tore it into little pieces which he entrusted to the
winds.
The firing behind him had died completely, and there was no sound but the
rustle of dry leaves in the light wind, nothing to tell that there had
been sharp fighting along the creek, and that men lay dead in the forest.
The moon and the stars clothed everything in a whitish light, that seemed
surcharged with a powerful essence, and this essence was danger.
The spirit of the great forest ranger descended upon him once more,
and he read the omens, all of which were sinister. He foresaw terrible
campaigns, mighty battles in the forest, and a roll of the dead so long
that it seemed to stretch away into infinity.
Then he shook himself violently, cast off the spell, and rode rapidly
back with his report.
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