“What is it, Chris?” asked Dalton with sympathy.
“I was sent down the Luray Valley to learn what I could and I discovered that Ord was advancing with ten thousand men on Front Royal, where General Jackson left only a small garrison. I'm going as fast as my horse can take me to tell him.”
“We're on the same kind of a mission, Chris,” said Harry. “We've seen the vanguard of Shields, ten thousand strong coming through Manassas Gap, and we also are going as fast as our horses can take us to tell General Jackson.”
“My God! Does it mean that we are about to be surrounded?”
“It looks like it,” said Harry, “but sometimes you catch things that you can't hold. George and I never give up faith in Old Jack.”
“Nor do I,” said Aubrey. “Come on! We'll ride together! I'm glad I met you boys. You give me courage.”
The three now rode abreast and again they galloped. One or two early farmers going phlegmatically to their fields saw them, but they passed on in silence. They had grown too used to soldiers to pay much attention to them. Moreover, these were their own.
The whole valley was now flooded with light. To east and to west loomed the great walls of the mountains, heavy with foliage, cut here and there by invisible gaps through which Harry knew that the Union troops were pouring.
They caught sight of moving heads on a narrow road coming from the west which would soon merge into theirs. They slackened speed for a moment or two, uncertain what to do, and then Aubrey exclaimed:
“It's a detachment of our own cavalry. See their gray uniforms, and that's Sherburne leading them!”