"Anyway, the Lord has delivered me from the trenches at Petersburg,"
said Pennington. "Think of me, used to roaming over a thousand miles of
plains, shut up between mud walls only four or five feet apart."

"I believe that, with Sheridan, you're going to have all the roaming you
want," said Dick.

They passed silent farm houses, but took nothing from them. Ample
provision was carried on extra horses or their own, and the three
colonels were anxious not to inflame the country by useless seizures.
Twilight came, and the low mountains sank away in the dusk. But they had
already reached a higher region where nearly all the hills were covered
with forest, and Colonel Hertford once more spread out the flankers,
Dick and the sergeant, as before, taking the right with their little
troop.

The night was fortunately clear, almost as light as day, with a burnished
moon and brilliant stars, and they did not greatly fear ambush. Dick
shrewdly reckoned that Early would need all his men in the valley, and,
after the first day at sharpshooting, they would withdraw to meet greater
demands.

Nevertheless he took a rather wide circuit and came into a lonely portion
of the hills, where the forest was unbroken, save for the narrow path on
which they rode. The sergeant dismounted once and examined the ground.

"Nothing has passed here," he said, "and the woods and thickets are so
dense that men can't ride through 'em."

The path admitted of only two abreast, and the forest was so heavy that