The Shades of the Wilderness: A Story of Lee's Great Stand, Joseph A. Altsheler [new reading txt] 📗

eye with a look of peace, where in reality there was no peace. Many thin columns of smoke lying blue against the silver sky told where farmhouses stood, and hunger suddenly seized upon Harry again.

Hunger is natural to youth, and his severe exertions all through the night had greatly increased it. It became both a pain and a weakness. His shoulders drooped with fatigue, and he felt that he must have food or faint by the way.

He was ashamed of his physical weakness, but he knew that unless he found food his faintness would increase, and hunger alone would stop him, where so able a man as Shepard could not. His uniform, faded anyhow, was so permeated with the dried mud of the river that it would take a keen eye to tell whether it was Federal or Confederate, and he need not disclose his identity in this region, which was so strongly for the Union. He made up his mind quickly and rode for the nearest farmhouse.

Harry knew that he was inviting risks. His pistols were still useless but they would be handy for threats, and he should be able to take care of himself at a farmhouse.

The house that he had chosen was only a few hundred yards away, its white walls visible among trees, and the clatter of his horse's hoofs brought a man from a barn in the rear. Harry noted him keenly. He was youngish, stalwart and the look out of his blue eyes was fearless. He came forward slowly, examining his visitor, and his manner was not altogether hospitable. Harry decided that he had to deal with a difficult customer but he had no idea of turning back.

"Good morning," he said politely.

"Good morning."

"I wish some breakfast and I will pay. I've ridden all night in our service."

"You've so much dried mud on you that you look as if you'd been passin' through a river."

"Correct. That's exactly what happened."

"But there's none on your horse."

"He didn't pass with me. I'm willing to answer any reasonable number of questions, but, as I told you before, I ride on an important service. I must have breakfast at once, and I'll pay."

"Whose service? Ours or Reb's?"

"A military messenger can't answer the chance questions of those by the roadside. I tell you I want breakfast at once."

"Fine horse you ride, stranger. How long have you had him?"

"All this year."

"Funny. When I saw him last week he belonged to Jim Kendall down by the Potomac, an' livin' on this very road, too."

"It isn't half as funny as you think. Hands up! Now call to your wife as loud as you can to bring me coffee and food at the gate! I know they're ready in the kitchen. I can smell 'em here. Out with it, call as fast as and as loud as you can, or off goes the top of your head!"

Although a horse pistol held in a firm hand was thrust under his nose, the man's blue eyes glared hate and defiance, and his mouth did not open. Harry, in his excitement and anger, forgot that the charge in his weapon was ruined and hence it was no acting with him when his own eyes blazed down at the other and he fairly shouted:

"I give you until I can count ten to call your wife! One! two! three! four! five! six! seven! eight! nine!—"

"Sophy! Sophy!" cried the farmer, who saw death flaming in the eyes that looked into his, "Come! Come a-runnin'!"

A good looking young woman threw open a door and ran, frightened, toward the gate, where she saw her husband under the pistol muzzle of a wild and savage looking man on horseback.

"Sophy," said the farmer, "bring this infernal rebel a cup of coffee and a plate of bread and meat. If it weren't for his pistol I'd drag him off his horse and carry him to General Meade, but he's got the drop on me!"

"And Sophy," said Harry, who was growing cooler, "you make it a big tin cup of coffee and you see that the plate is piled high with meat and bread. Now don't you make one mistake. Don't you come back with any weapon in your hand in place of food, and don't you fire on me from the house with the family rifle. You're young and you're good looking, and, doubtless the widow of our friend here with the upraised hands, wouldn't have to wait long for another husband just as good as he is."

The woman paled a little, and Harry knew that some thought of the family rifle had been in her mind. The husband's glare became ferocious.

"You can take your hands down," said Harry. "I've no wish to torture you, and I'm satisfied now that you're not armed."

The man dropped his arms and the woman hurried to the kitchen. Harry did not watch her, but kept his eyes continually upon the man, who he knew would take advantage of his first careless moment, and spring for him like a tiger. A pistol that he couldn't fire wouldn't be of much use to him then.

But the woman returned with a big tin cup of smoking coffee and a plate piled high with bread and bacon and beefsteak. It was a welcome sight. The aspect of the whole world became brighter at once, and the pulse of hope beat high. But happiness did not make him relax caution.

"Stand back about ten feet more," he said to the man, "I don't like your looks."

"What's the matter with my looks?"

"It's not exactly your looks I mean, though they're scarcely worthy of the lady, your wife, but it's rather your attitude or position which reminds me of a lion or a tiger about to spring upon something it hates."

The man, with a savage growl, withdrew a little.

"I'd like to put a bullet through you," he said.

"I've no doubt of it, your eyes show it, but before I take a polite leave of you I want to tell you that I did not steal this horse from your friend, Jim Kendall. I paid for it at his own valuation."

"Confederate money that won't be worth a dollar a bale before long."

"Oh, no, bills that were made and stamped at Washington, and I pay for this breakfast in silver."

He dropped it into the hand of the woman, as he took the huge cup of coffee from her. Then he drank deep and long, and again and again, draining the last drop of the brown liquid.

"I hope it's burnt the lining out of your throat," said the man savagely.

"It was warm, but I like it that way. It was good indeed, and I'm sorry, Madame, that you have such a violent and ill-tempered husband. Maybe your next will be a much better man."

"John is neither violent nor ill-tempered. He's never said a harsh word to me since we were married. But he hates the rebels dreadfully."

"That's too bad. I don't hate him and I'm glad you can give him a good character. A man's own wife knows best. Now, I'm going to eat this breakfast as I ride on. You'll find the plate on the fence a quarter of a mile ahead."

He bowed to both, and still keeping a wary eye on the man, thrust his pistol into his belt, and as his horse moved forward at a swift and easy gait he began to eat with a ravenous appetite.

A backward glance showed husband and wife still gazing at him. But it was only for a moment. They ran into the house and a little further on Harry looked back again. They had reappeared and he almost expected to hear again the whistle of a rifle shot, fired from a window. But the distance was much too great, and he devoted renewed attention to the demands of hunger.

When he had finished his breakfast he put the plate upon the fence as he had promised, and, looking back for the last time, he saw an American flag wave to and fro on the roof of the house. He felt a thrill of alarm. It must be a signal concerning him and it could be made only to his enemies. Speaking sharply to his horse, he urged him into a gallop.

CHAPTER V THE DANGEROUS ROAD

The road led in the general direction of Lee's army and Harry knew that if he followed it long enough he was bound to reach his commander, but the two words "long enough" might defeat everything. Undoubtedly a Federal force was near, or the farmer and his wife would not be signaling from the roof of their house.

A plucky couple they were and he gave them all credit, but he was aware that while he had secured breakfast from them they had put the wolves upon his trail. There were high hills on both the right and left of the road, and, as he galloped along he examined them through his glasses for flags answering the signal on the house. But he saw nothing and the thickness of the forest indicated that even if the signals were made there it was not likely he could see them.

Now he wisely restrained the speed of his horse, so full of strength and spirit that it seemed willing to run on forever, and brought him down to a walk. He had an idea that he would soon be pursued, and then a fresh horse would be worth a dozen tired ones.

The road continued to run between high, forested hills, splendid for ambush, and Harry saw what a danger it was not to have knowledge of the country. He understood how the Union forces in the South were so often at a loss on ground that was strange to them.

The road now curved a little to the left, and a few hundred yards ahead another from the east merged with it. Along this road the forest was thinner, and upon it, but some distance away, he saw bobbing heads in caps, twenty, perhaps, in number. He knew at once that they were the enemy, called by the signal, and leaning forward he spoke in the ear of his good horse.

"You and I haven't known each other long," he said, "but we're good friends. I paid honest and sufficient money for you, when I could have ridden away on you without paying a cent. I know you have a powerful frame and that your speed is great. I really believe you're the fastest runner in all this part of the state. Now, prove it!"

The horse stretched out his neck, and the road flew behind him, his body working like a mighty machine perfectly attuned, even to its minutest part. Harry's words had met a true response. He heard a cry on the cross road, and the bobbing heads came forward much faster. Either they had seen him or they had heard the swift beat of his horse's hoofs. Loud shouts arose, but he saw the uniforms of the men, and he knew that they belonged to the Northern army.

He went past the junction of the roads, as if he were flying, but he was not a bit too soon, as he heard the crack of rifles, and bullets struck in the earth behind him. He knew that they would follow, hang on persistently, but he had supreme confidence in the speed and strength of his horse, and youth rode triumphant. It was youth more than anything else that made him raise himself a little in his saddle, look back to his pursuers and fling to them a long, taunting cry, just as Henry Ware more than once had taunted his Indian pursuers before disappearing in a flight that their swiftest warriors could not match.

But the little band of Union troopers clung to the chase. They too had good horses, and they knew that the man before them was a Southern messenger, and in those hot July days of 1863 all military messages carried on the roads north of the Potomac were important. The fate of an army or a nation might turn upon any one of them, and the lieutenant who led the little Union troop was aware of it. He was a man of intelligence and a consuming desire to overtake the lone horseman lay hold of him. He knew, as well