The night was dark and drizzly; but before morning the clouds cleared away, leaving a thick mist hanging low on the meadows. The scout's mare was fleet, but the road was rough, and a slosh of snow impeded the travel. He had come by a strange way, and did not know how far he had travelled by sunrise; but lights were ahead, shivering in the haze of the cold, gray morning. Were they the early candles of some sleepy village, or the camp-fires of a band of guerrillas? He did not know, and it would not be safe to go on till he did know. The road was lined with trees, but they would give no shelter; for they were far apart, and the snow lay white between them. He was in the blue grass region. Tethering his horse in the timber, he climbed a tall oak by the roadside; but the mist was too thick to admit of his discerning anything distinctly. It seemed, however, to be breaking away, and he would wait until his way was clear; so he sat there, an hour, two hours, and ate his breakfast from the satchel John's wife had slung over his shoulder. At last the fog lifted a little, and he saw close at hand a small hamlet,—a few rude huts gathered round a cross-road. No danger could lurk in such a place, and he was about to descend, and pursue his journey, when suddenly he heard, up the road by which he came, the rapid tramp of a body of horsemen. The mist was thicker below; so half-way down the tree he went, and waited their coming. They moved at an irregular pace, carrying lanterns, and pausing every now and then to inspect the road, as if they had missed their way or lost something. Soon they came near, and were dimly outlined in the gray mist, so the scout could make out their number. There were thirty of them,—the original band, and a reinforcement. Again they halted when abreast of the tree, and searched the road narrowly.
"He must have come this way," said one,—he of the chivalry. "The other road is six miles longer, and he would take the shortest route. It's an awful pity we didn't head him on both roads."
"We kin come up with him yit, ef we turn plumb round, and foller on t'other road,—whar we lost the trail,—back thar, three miles ter the deadnin'."
Now another spoke, and his voice the scout remembered. He belonged to his own company in the Fourteenth Kentucky. "It 'so," he said; "he has tuck t' other road. I tell ye, I'd know thet mar's shoe 'mong a million. Nary one loike it wus uver seed in all Kaintuck,—only a d——d Yankee could ha' invented it."
"And yere it ar'," shouted a man with one of the lanterns, "plain as sun-up."
The Fourteenth Kentuckian clutched the light, and, while a dozen dismounted and gathered round, closely examined the shoe-track. The ground was bare on the spot, and the print of the horse's hoof was clearly cut in the half-frozen mud. Narrowly the man looked, and life and death hung on his eyesight. The scout took out the bullet, and placed it in a crotch of the tree. If they took him, the Devil should not take the dispatch. Then he drew a revolver. The mist was breaking away, and he would surely be discovered, if the men lingered much longer; but he would have the value of his life to the uttermost farthing.
Meanwhile, the horsemen crowded around the foot-print, and one of them inadvertently trod upon it. The Kentuckian looked long and earnestly, but at last he said,—
"'Ta'n't the track. Thet 'ar' mar' has a sand-crack on her right fore-foot. She didn't take kindly to a round shoe; so the Yank, he guv her one with the cork right in the middle o' the quarter. 'Twas a durned smart contrivance; fur ye see, it eased the strain, and let the nag go nimble as a squirrel. The cork ha'n't yere,—'ta'n't her track,—and we're wastin,' time in luckin'."
The cork was not there, because the trooper's tread had obliterated it. Reader, let us thank him for that one good step, if he never take another; for it saved the scout, and, may-be, it saved Kentucky. When the scout returned that way, he halted abreast of that tree, and examined the ground about it. Right there, in the road, was the mare's track, with the print of the man's foot still upon the inner quarter! He uncovered his head, and from his heart went up a simple thanksgiving.
The horsemen gone, the scout came down from the tree, and pushed on into the misty morning. There might be danger ahead, but there surely was danger behind him. His pursuers were only half convinced that they had struck his trail; and some sensible fiend might put it into their heads to divide and follow, part by one route, part by the other.