"The sentinels are not a hundred yards beyond us," he heard him say. "All three saw them. The ground slopes gradually to the south and west. It's quite open. They crossed the Run down yonder, and rode straight away northward," and the sergeant pointed to a distant ridge. "None of 'em came within range. They didn't seem to think anybody would be out here at all."
The staff-officer sat listening quietly and attentively until the sergeant finished. Then he turned to the major. "I chose this ground myself," he said. "The sentries are hidden by bushes from the front, and have a clear view for nearly a mile, by day at least, and looking back you could see the roofs of Centreville on the high ground to the east. I reconnoitred all through here yesterday and came across that bridge about three o'clock. There's a deep wide ditch, marshy in places, wet and miry everywhere for a mile either way, and the banks are steep. Foot troops and cavalry can cross all right, but we've got to keep that bridge for the guns, especially that big thirty-pound Parrott General Hunter's to bring along. I wish we'd been sent out earlier, though of course we might have been seen crossing the open fields. Look!" and Lieutenant Upton led a few paces to the edge of the scattered trees, and there the whole westward firmament was visible, even down to the black lines of the Bull Run Mountains, just setting its own "sentinel stars" for the long night-watch.
"I wish so, too," said the major. "Lawton, ride back and guide the column. It may lose the way."
Again the lad turned and trotted away, but before he had gone a hundred yards he could see the faint gleam of steel come dancing through the glade, and almost instantly there followed the stern, sharp, low-voiced challenge. "It's Lawton," he answered quickly. "The major feared you might lose the way, and told me to guide you."
The men were panting a little now, for Flint was forcing the pace. Something told them there was work ahead. "Know what's up, orderly?" muttered the captain.
"No, sir. The pickets say some rebel cavalry crossed the front just before dark, somewhere about two dozen of 'em." And as Snipe now rode along, with over three hundred stalwart fellows trudging at his back, despite all the excitement of the moment his thoughts went back to the school-days and the First Latin, and he wondered what the fellows would think to see him now, guiding a whole battalion to its post of duty, perhaps to its place in battle. He wondered with clinching teeth and quickening breath who could have made those fellows he had so sworn by believe that he, Snipe Lawton, was a common thief. Was that the reason Shorty never wrote again? Was that why no one now seemed to care where he was or what had become of him? The boy's wounded heart beat vehemently in protest and in indignation, and there in the darkness of that 'cross country wood path his lips murmured a prayer for guidance and protection, that he might live to give the lie to that slander,—might so live as to win honor and credit for the name his enemies had besmirched. Two nights before, following his major through a dark lane when visiting sentries, the boy's heart had bounded uncontrollably, and his knees had trembled so hard that his horse, too, seemed to shake, all because a nervous raw recruit had fancied he saw a rebel stealing on him through the blackness of the night, and after vainly challenging a wandering mule, had roused the whole division and nearly killed his major with a single wildly aimed shot. To-night as Snipe thought of the story he had wrung from the unwilling lips of Sergeant Keating, of the Fire Zouaves, one of 40's old "bunkers," the sense of pride and indignation bore down all thought of fear, and Snipe Lawton, who the year before hated drill and wouldn't be a soldier for anything, even now in the dark, where Napoleon himself had said most men were cowards, was praying that the rebels might be there at the bridge, and that he might be foremost in the dash upon them.
On past the peering, shadowy knots of soldiers of Sergeant Holman's party he led them, the hard-breathing, swift-striding Yankees swinging along behind. Out over the starlit open to where, well across the field, he could dimly descry the forms of two horsemen. "Well done, orderly," muttered the regular. "You've lost not a second. Now, major, we'll push ahead. Better caution them not to make a sound."
"They won't," said Stark, in answer, and resumed the northward way. Five minutes and they were skirting an old snake-fence, well out beyond the hail of the last sentry or vedette of the Union lines. Any moment now they might meet scouting parties of the rebel horse, and here Lieutenant Upton warned the major to keep with his command, while he himself, bending low on his horse's neck, pushed out ahead. Ten minutes more they went without halt of any kind, but now Stark noted how hard the men were breathing, and ordered Flint to take it easy. "Soldiers need their wind if it comes to fighting," said he. Fifteen minutes, and there was a long fringe of timber ahead, and farther off to the north a light was shining, like a candle, in a farm-house window, but still the dim cart-track led on, and the young staff-officer kept out ahead. Little by little they drew closer to the trees, and eyes and ears were strained for sight or sound. The major, too, was bending low by this time, and eagerly, anxiously, scanning the shadowy line ahead. Presently he drew rein and muttered a call to Snipe, and the lad spurred up alongside. Both horses were pricking up their ears. "This horse acts as though there were others ahead there," whispered Stark. "It may be only the lieutenant's. Here he comes now!"
It was Lieutenant Upton, riding cautiously back. "Major," he muttered, "that bridge is just across the next field, and I could hear voices and the sound of horses' hoofs on the planks. If it's that patrol, we've got 'em. We can't deploy yet. We must creep through these woods and deploy beyond them. I know the ground."
The column had not even halted, for the moment the staff-officer joined the leader he reined about and rode on, talking eagerly in low tone as he rode, then once more pushed cautiously ahead, the hoof-beats hardly audible on the springy turf, and was soon lost among the trees. Five minutes more and the major and his faithful orderly emerged again under the open starlight, and there they found their alert guide. "Let them halt in the timber a moment," whispered Upton. "Look at that light." And while the head of column abruptly ordered arms, and each succeeding set of fours almost bumped up against that which preceded it before it could do likewise, the aide-de-camp pointed southward.