On Saturday, the end of the week after Antietam, the troop rode westward along the line of a railroad. The Confederates had been at it, some of them within a day or two, for the burned ties were still smoking. They had bent the rails by heating them in the middle and twisting them around the trees. At regular intervals were black circles of the fires and charred ends of ties. It was too systematic for guerillas.
"There," said a lieutenant to Mavering, "you can write your papers there are twenty or thirty miles of this, all done under the nose of the chief."
"A vigilant, aggressive man, the latter, I infer, is your matured opinion," said Mavering; and the lieutenant replied, dryly, "Something like that."
The sandy road-bed curved through woods that must have been straggling and discouraged in their green days, and now were black and smoking, for the abandoned fires had spread. The wind mourned through the desolation, and blew thin veils and streamers of smoke overhead.
"And no doubt Captain Map's opinion coincides with yours in favor of activity and vigilance."
"He's a hot-and-cool man to ride with. You might write that we're on a line which was burned through yesterday or the day before, and just now a lot of hostile cavalry are cavorting round the neighborhood somewhere, likely to drop on us any moment. We're out to find about this line and that cavalry, and get back if we can."
"I notice—a point that strikes an artist in realistic description inevitably—that Captain Map is calmly reading something as he rides. Such things illustrate."
"His nerve? Oh, that's all right."
"But the artist's imagination proceeds. Reading what? A newspaper? No, a written sheet, which the wind blows about in his hands. Perhaps instructions—or, better, a love letter."
"Likely enough."