"Then you must mount and ride. This force is sitting down before us for
a siege, and it probably has pickets about the village, but you must get
through somehow. Bring help! The Yankees are likely to send back for
help, too, but we've got to win here."

"I'm off in five minutes," said Harry, "and I'll come with a brigade by
dawn."

"I believe you will," said Sherburne. "But get to Old Jack! Get there!
If you can only reach him, we're saved! He may not have any horsemen at
hand, but his foot cavalry can march nearly as fast! Lord, how Stonewall
Jackson can cover ground!"

Their hands met in the hearty grasp of a friendship which was already old
and firm, and Harry, without looking back, slipped into the wood, where
the men from the village were watching over the horses. Sherburne had
told him to take any horse he needed, but he chose his own, convinced
that he had no equal, slipped into the saddle, and rode to the edge of
the wood.

"There's a creek just back of us; you can see the water shining through
the break in the trees," said a man who kept the village store. "The
timber's pretty thick along it, and you'd best keep in its shelter.
Here, you Tom, show him the way."

A boy of fourteen stepped up to the horse's head.

"My son," said the storekeeper. "He knows every inch of the ground."