He always carried glasses over his shoulder, and lately Colonel
Winchester had made him a gift of a splendid pair, which he now put into
use, sweeping the whole circle of the horizon. With their powerful aid
he was able to see the ancient city of Petersburg, where Lee had thrown
himself across Grant's path in order to block his way to Richmond,
the Southern capital, and had dug long lines of trenches in which his
army lay. It was Lee who first used this method of defense for a smaller
force against a larger, and the vast trench warfare of Europe a half
century later was a repetition of the mighty struggle of Lee and Grant
on the lines of Petersburg.

Dick through his glasses saw the trenches, lying like a brown bar across
the green country, and opposite them another brown bar, often less than
a hundred yards away, which marked where the Northern troops also had
dug in. The opposing lines extended a distance of nearly forty miles,
and Richmond was only twenty miles behind them. It was the nearest the
Army of the Potomac had come to the Southern capital since McClellan had
seen the spires of its churches, and that was more than two years away.

Warner and Pennington were lying on the ground, eating big red apples
with much content and looking up lazily at Mason.

"You're curving those glasses about a lot. What do you see, Dick?"
asked Pennington at length.

"I see Petersburg, an old, old town, half buried in foliage, and with
many orchards and gardens about it. A pity that two great armies should
focus on such a pleasant place."