“Come! We’re on the verge of morning,” said Armitage, “and there’s no time to lose.”
CHAPTER XXIV
THE ATTACK IN THE ROAD
Cowards and laggards fall back; but alert to the saddle,
Straight, grim and abreast, vault our weather-worn galloping legion, With a stirrup-cup each to the one gracious woman that loves him.
—Louise Imogen Guiney.
“There’s an abandoned lumber camp down here, if I’m not mistaken, and if we’ve made the right turns we ought to be south of Lamar and near the railroad.”
Armitage passed his rein to Claiborne and plunged down the steep road to reconnoiter.
“It’s a strange business,” Claiborne muttered half-aloud.
The cool air of the ridge sobered him, but he reviewed the events of the night without regret. Every young officer in the service would envy him this adventure. At military posts scattered across the continent men whom he knew well were either abroad on duty, or slept the sleep of peace. He lifted his eyes to the paling stars. Before long bugle and morning gun would announce the new day at points all along the seaboard. His West Point comrades were scattered far, and the fancy seized him that the bugle brought them together every day of their lives as it sounded the morning calls that would soon begin echoing down the coast from Kennebec Arsenal and Fort Preble in Maine, through Myer and Monroe, to McPherson, in Georgia, and back through Niagara and Wayne to Sheridan, and on to Ringgold and Robinson and Crook, zigzagging back and forth over mountain and plain to the Pacific, and thence ringing on to Alaska, and echoing again from Hawaii to lonely outposts in Asian seas.
He was so intent with the thought that he hummed reveille, and was about to rebuke himself for unsoldierly behavior on duty when Armitage whistled for him to advance.