“There was no time when you were turning around the circle that your eyes didn't look toward Yankees. Nearly fifty thousand of 'em are in the valley. We're in a ring of steel, Happy.”
“Well, Old Jack will just take his sword and slash that steel ring apart. And if he should fail I'm here. Lead me to 'em, Harry.”
Langdon's spirits were infectious. Even the marching men who heard Happy Tom laugh, laughed with him and were more cheerful. They marched faster, too, and from other points men were coming quickly to Jackson at Winchester. They were even coming into contact with the ring of steel which was closing in on them. Fremont, advancing with his fifteen thousand from the mountains, met a heavy fire from a line of ambushed riflemen. Not knowing where Jackson was or what he was doing, and fearing that the great Confederate commander might be before him with his whole army, he stopped at Cedar Creek and made a camp of defense.
Shields, in the south, moving forward, found a swarm of skirmishers in his front, and presently the Acadians, sent in that direction by Jackson, opened up with a heavy fire on his vanguard. Shields drew back. He, too, feared that Jackson with his entire army was before him and rumor magnified the Southern force. Meanwhile the flying cavalry of Ashby harassed the Northern advance at many points.
All the time the main army of Jackson was retreating toward Winchester, carrying with it the prisoners and a vast convoy of wagons filled with captured ammunition and stores. Jackson had foreseen everything. He had directed the men who were leading these forces to pass around Winchester in case he was compelled to abandon it, circle through the mountains and join him wherever he might be.
But Harry when he returned to Winchester breathed a little more freely. He felt in some manner that the steel ring did not compress so tightly. Jackson, acting on the inside of the circle, had spread consternation. The Northern generals could not communicate with one another because either mountains or Southern troops came between. Prisoners whom the Southern cavalry brought in told strange stories. Rumor in their ranks had magnified Jackson's numbers double or triple. Many believed that a great force was coming from Richmond to help him. Jackson was surrounded, but the beaters were very wary about pressing in on him.
Yet the Union masses in the valley had increased. McDowell himself had now come, and he sent forward cavalry details which, losing the way, were compelled to return. Fremont on the west at last finding the line of riflemen before him withdrawn, pushed forward, and saw the long columns of the Southern army with their wagons moving steadily toward the south. His cavalry attacking were driven off and the Southern division went on.
Harry with the retreating division wondered at these movements and admired their skill. Jackson's army, encumbered as it was with prisoners and stores, was passing directly between the armies of Fremont and Shields, covering its flanks with clouds of skirmishers and cavalry that beat off every attack of the hostile vanguards, and that kept the two Northern armies from getting into touch.
Jackson had not stopped at Winchester. He had left that town once more to the enemy and was still drawing back toward the wider division of the valley west of the Massanuttons. The great mind was working very fast now. The men themselves saw that warlike genius incarnate rode on the back of Little Sorrel. Jackson was slipping through the ring, carrying with him every prisoner and captured wagon.
His lightning strokes to right and to left kept Shields and Fremont dazed and bewildered, and McDowell neither knew what was passing nor could he get his forces together. Harry saw once more and with amazement the dark bulk of the Massanuttons rising on his left and he knew that these great isolated mountains would again divide the Union force, while Jackson passed on in the larger valley.