"I'm glad of that, too," said Pete. "We certainly took enough trouble to get the right dope, didn't we?"
CHAPTER XV
A DECISIVE MOVEMENT
Pete Stubbs was secretly glad that the scouting trip toward Fessenden Junction had been ordered. He was terribly afraid of the consequences to Jack should he accept Broom's defiance and meet him that night, and he did not know whether Durland and Dick Crawford would share his views. So he hoped that the work in the scout car would distract Jack's mind and lead him to forget his promise to Broom to see what the Scout-Master and his assistant thought of the plan.
As the car made its swift way along the roads towards Fessenden Junction, the sound of firing constantly came to them.
"I thought Jim Burroughs said the fighting had been stopped," said Tom Binns.
"The main bodies were stopped, but that doesn't mean the whole fight is over," explained Jack. "Bean's brigade, you see, probably hasn't been in action at all yet. His troops were not among those sent to Tryon Creek, and he has to cover the roads leading in this direction. It's just because General Harkness is afraid that some of the Blue troops may have been detached to make a raid by a roundabout route that we are coming over here."
"Suppose we ran into them, Jack? Would we be able to get word back in time to be of any use?"
"Why not? This is our own country. We have the telegraph and the telephone wires, and the railroad is within a mile of General Harkness's quarters at Tryon Creek. All he needs to do is to pack troops aboard the trains he undoubtedly has waiting there and send them on to Fessenden Junction. We have the same advantage here that the enemy had when they held Hardport. Then we had to move our troops entirely on foot while they could use the railroad, and move ten miles to our one. Now that position is reversed—as long as we hold the key of the railroad situation, Fessenden Junction."