No state can
be truly great without them. There's another detachment of ours just
ahead, but we'll talk to them only a minute or two."
The second detachment reported that Pleasanton, with a heavy cavalry
force, was about six miles farther west and that there was a fair road
all the way. They should overtake him in an hour.
Harry's heart beat hard. Unless something happened within that hour he
would never reach Lee, and his brain began to work with extraordinary
activity. Plans passed in review before it as rapidly as pictures on
a film, but all were rejected. He was in despair. They were trotting
rapidly down a smooth road. A quarter of an hour passed and then a
half-hour. A low bare hill appeared immediately on their right, and
Harry saw beyond it the tops of trees.
"Captain Lester," he said, "suppose that you and I ride to the crest of
the hill. You have strong glasses, so have I, and we may see something
worth while. The men will ride on, but we can easily overtake them."
"Not a bad idea, Haskell," said the captain, still in that slightly
patronizing tone. "I judge by your speech that you're a well educated
man, and you appear to think."
They rode quickly to the summit, and Lester, putting his glasses to his
eyes, gazed westward over a vast expanse of cultivated country.
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