The wind was still driving the thin sheets of rain before it, and was keeping up a howling and whistling in the pass, a most sinister sound to one not used to the forest and darkness, although Dick paid no attention to it.
Twice the clouds parted slightly and showed a bit of moonlight, but the gleam was so brief that it was gone in a second or two. Nevertheless at the second ray Dick saw crouched beside a tree at the far side of the road a small hunched figure holding a rifle, the head crowned by an enormous flap-brimmed hat. His imagination also made him see small, close-set, menacing red eyes, and he knew at once that it was Slade, the same guerrilla leader who had once pursued him with such deadly vindictiveness through the Mississippi forest and swamps. He had heard that he had come farther north and had united his band with that of Skelly, who pretended to be on the other side. But one could never tell about these outlaws. When they were distant from the regular armies nobody was safe from them.
"Did you see?" whispered Dick to the sergeant who had crept to his side.
"Yes, I caught a glimpse of him. It was Slade, who tried so hard to kill you down there in the Vicksburg campaign. If we get another ray of the moonlight I'll pick him off, that is if you say so, sir."
"I've no objection, sergeant. Such a man as Slade cumbers the earth. Besides, he'll do everything he can now to kill us."
The sergeant knelt, carbine raised, and waited for the ray of moonlight. He was a dead shot, and he believed that he would not miss, but when the ray came at last Slade was not there. Whitley uttered a low exclamation of disgust.
"A good chance gone," he said, "and it may never come again. I'd have saved the lives of a lot of good men."
But a flash came from the thicket, and the sergeant from the grass replied. A cry followed his shot, showing that some one had received his bullet, but Dick knew instinctively that it was not Slade, the crafty leader he was sure now being safe behind the trunk of a tree.
Presently the sergeant fired from another point, and then crept hastily away lest the flash of his rifle betray him. A dozen shots were fired by Slade's band, but no harm was done, and then, the sergeant coming back, Dick held a consultation with his two lieutenants and advisers.
"Perhaps we may flank them," he said. "We can divide our force, and taking them by surprise drive them out of the wood."