Even as he spoke, Harry heard the heavy, regular tread of the brigades
marching forward through the Wilderness. He saluted General Longstreet.
"I shall return at once with your message," he said.
But Harry, having had one such experience, was resolved not to risk
another. He would make a wider circuit in the rear of the army. Shepard,
on foot, and anxious to avenge his defeat, might be waiting for him,
but he would go around him. So when he started back he made a wide curve,
and soon was in the darkness and silence again.
He had a good horse and his idea of direction being very clear he rode
swiftly in the direction he had chosen. But his curve was so great that
when he reached the center of it he was so far in the rear of the army
that no sound came from it. If the skirmishers were still firing the
reports of their rifles were lost in the distance. Where he rode the
only noises were those made by the wild animals that inhabited the
Wilderness, creatures that had settled back into their usual haunts after
the armies had passed beyond.
Once a startled deer sprang from a clump of bushes and crashed away
through the thickets. Rabbits darted from his path, and an owl,
wondering what all the disturbance was about, hooted mournfully from a
bough.
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