"The Yankee vanguard is only a few miles away," he said. "You don't have to go far before you see their tents, though I ought to say that each side has another army westward in the mountains. There's been a lot of fighting already, though not much of it here. The first shots on Virginia soil were fired on our front the day General Beauregard arrived to take command of our forces."
"How about those troops in the hills?" asked Harry.
"They've been up and doing. A young Yankee general named McClellan has shown a lot of activity. He has beat us in some skirmishes and he has organized troops as far west as the Ohio. Then he and his generals met our general, Garnett, at Rich Mountain. It was the biggest affair of the war so far, and Garnett was killed. Then a curious fellow of ours named Jackson, and Stuart, a cavalry officer, lost a little battle at a place called Falling Waters."
"Has the luck been against us all along the line?"
"Not at all! A cock-eyed Massachusetts politician, one Ben Butler, a fellow of energy though, broke into the Yorktown country, but Magruder thrashed him at Big Bethel. All those things, though, Harry, are just whiffs of rain before the big storm. We're threatening Washington here with our main army, and here is where they will have to meet us. Lincoln has put General Scott, a Virginian, too, in command of the Northern armies, but as he's so old, somebody else will be the real commander."
Harry felt himself a genuine soldier in his new uniform, and he soon learned his new duties, which, for the present, would not be many. The two armies, although practically face to face, refused to move. On either side the officers of the old regular force were seeking to beat the raw recruits into shape, and the rival commanders also waited, each for the other to make the first movement.
Harry and St. Clair were sent that night far toward the front with a small detachment to patrol some hill country. They marched in the moonlight, keeping among the trees, and listening for any sounds that might be hostile.
"It's not likely though that we'll be molested," said St. Clair. "The men on both sides don't yet realize fully that they are here to shoot at one another. This is our place, along a little brook, another tributary of the Manassas."
They stopped in a grove and disposed the men, twenty in number, along a line of several hundred yards, with instructions not to fire unless they knew positively what they were shooting at. Harry and St. Clair remained near the middle of the line, at the edge of the brook, where they sat down on the bank. The country was open in front of them, and Harry saw a distant light.
"What's that?" he asked.