The Southern troops burnt the bridges over the creeks as they retreated, but the Northern men waded through the water and followed. The clouds of cavalry were always in touch. A skirmish was invariably proceeding at some point. Toward evening of the second day's pursuit, they came to Mount Jackson, to which they had retreated once before, and there went into camp in a strong place.
But the privates themselves knew that they could not stay there long. They might turn and beat off Fremont's army, but then they would have to reckon with the second army under Shields and the yet heavier masses that McDowell was bringing up. But Jackson himself gave no sign of discouragement. He went cheerfully among the men, and saw that attention, as far as possible at such a time, was given to their needs. Harry hunted up St. Clair and found him with a bandaged shoulder sitting in his wagon. He was sore but cheerful.
“The doctor tells me, Harry, that I can take my place in the line in three more days,” he said, “but I intend to make it two. I fancy that we need all the men we can get now, and that I won't be driven back to this wagon.”
“If I were as well fixed as you are, Arthur,” said Langdon, who appeared at this moment on the other side of the wagon, “I'd stay where I was. But it's so long since I've been hauled that I'm afraid the luxury would overpower me. Think of lying on your back and letting the world float peacefully by! Did I say 'think of it'? I was wrong. It is unthinkable. Now, Harry, what plans has Old Jack got for us?”
“I don't know.”
“Well, he'll get us out of this. We're sure of that. But when? That's the question.”
The question remained without an answer. Early the next morning they were on the march again under lowering skies. The heavens from horizon to horizon were a sodden gray and began to drip rain. Harry was sent again to the rear-guard, where Ashby's cavalry hung like a curtain, backed by the Invincibles and one or two other skeleton regiments.
Harry joined Sherburne and now the drip of the rain became a steady beat. Chilling winds from the mountains swept over them. He had preserved through thick and thin, through battle and through march that big cavalry cloak, and now he buttoned it tightly around him.
He saw down the road puffs of smoke and heard the lashing fire of rifles, but it did not make his pulses beat any faster now. He had grown so used to it that it seemed to be his normal life. A bullet fired from a rifle of longer range than the others plumped into the mud at the feet of his horse, but he paid no attention to it.
He joined Sherburne, who was using his glasses, watching through the heavy, thick air the Northern advance. The brilliant young cavalryman, while as bold and enduring as ever, had changed greatly in the last two or three weeks. The fine uniform was stained and bedraggled. Sherburne himself had lost more than twenty pounds and his face was lined and anxious far more than the face of a mere boy of twenty-three should have been.