"It's not always brown," said Pennington. "Lots of the Virginia mud is a rich, ripe red. Bet you anything that before tomorrow night we will have turned to some hue of scarlet."
"We won't take the wager," said Dick, "because you bet on a certainty."
That afternoon the scouts surprised a telegraph station on the railroad, and found in it a dispatch from General Early. To the great amazement of Sheridan, Early was not far away. He had only two hundred men, but with them the grim old fighter prepared to attack the Union army. Sheridan himself felt a certain pity for his desperate opponent, but he promptly sent Custer in search of him. The young cavalryman quickly found him and scattered or captured the entire band.
Early escaped from the fight with a lone orderly as his comrade, and the next day the general who had lost all through no fault of his own, rode into Richmond with his single companion, and from him Jefferson Davis, President of the Confederacy, heard the full tale of Southern disaster in the Valley of Virginia.
Meanwhile Sheridan and his victorious army rode on to a place called White House, where they found plenty of stores, and where they halted for a long rest, and also to secure new mounts, if they could. Their horses were worn out completely by the great campaign and were wholly unfit for further service. But it was hard to obtain fresh ones and the delay was longer than the general had intended. Nevertheless his troops profited by it. They had not realized until they stopped how near they too had come to utter exhaustion, and for several days they were in a kind of physical torpor while their strength came back gradually.
"I think I've removed the last trace of the Virginia mud from my clothes and myself," said Warner on the morning of the second day, "but I've had to work hard to do it, as time seemed to have made it almost a part of my being."
"I've spent most of my time learning to walk again, and getting the bows out of my legs," said Dick. "I've been a-horse so long that I felt like a sailor coming ashore from a three years' cruise."
"Agreed with me pretty well, all except the mud, since I was born on horseback," said Pennington. "But I don't like to ride in a brown plaster suit of armor. What do you think is ahead, boys?"
"Junction with General Grant," said Dick. "They say, also, that General Sherman, after completing his great work in Georgia and North Carolina, is coming to join them too. It will be a great meeting, that of the three successful generals who have destroyed the Confederacy, because there's nothing of it left now but Lee's army, and that they say is mighty small."
It was in reality a triumphant march that they began after they left White House, refreshed, remounted and ready for new conquests. They soon came into touch with the Army of the Potomac, and the great meeting between Grant, Sherman and Sheridan took place, Sherman having come north especially for the purpose. Then Sheridan's force became attached to the Army of the Potomac, and his cavalry columns advanced into the marshes about Petersburg. All fear that they would be sent to cooperate with Sherman passed, and Dick knew that the Winchester men would be in the final struggle with Lee, a struggle the success of which he felt assured.