"Yeah, how? Ride up to their camp an' say, 'We know wheah at theah's some bushwhackers, come'n see'?" Webb asked scornfully. "After this mornin' they won't even listen to a truce flag, I'm thinkin'."
Croff nodded. "That's right."
"Supposin' those sentries we passed back there were knocked out and two of us took their places and the other two then laid a trail leadin' here?"
"Showin' themselves for bait, plainlike?" Kirby asked.
"If we have to. The alarm will have gone out. I'm bettin' there're patrols thick on that road."
"Any blue bellies travelin' theah now are gonna be bunched an' ready to shoot at anything movin'."
"So," Croff cut in over Webb's instant objection, "you get some Yankees a-hittin' it up after you, and you run for here. They're not all dumb enough to ride right into this kind of country."
"We'll have to work it so they'll keep comin'. When you see them headin' into the gorge after us, you move out of the sentry posts back across this ridge and start cuttin' this camp down to size—pick off those horses and put 'em afoot. That'll keep them here till the Yankees come."
"You know," Kirby said, "it's jus' crazy enough to work. Lordy—if it was summer, I'd say we all had our brains sun-cured, but I'm willin' to try it. Who does what?"
"Croff and Webb'll take out the sentries. We'll go hunt us up some Yankees." As Kirby said, it was a wild plan anchored here and there on chance alone. But the scouts were familiar with action as rash as this, which had worked. And they still had a few hours of daylight left in which to try it.