Dick's heart missed a beat or two, as he saw the sinister picture that he
had created in his own mind. Highly imaginative, he had leaped to the
conclusion that Lee and Jackson meant to trap the Union army, the hammer
beating it out on the anvil. He raised the glasses to his eyes, surveyed
the forests in the South once more, and then his heart missed another
beat.
He had caught the flash of steel, the sun's rays falling across a bayonet
or a polished rifle barrel. And then as he looked he saw the flash again
and again. He handed the glasses to Warner and said quietly:
"George, I see troops on the edge of that far hill to the south and the
east. Can't you see them, too?"
"Yes, I can make them out clearly now, as they pass across a bit of open
land. They're Confederate cavalry, two hundred at least, I should say."
Dick learned long afterward that it was the troop of Sherburne, but,
for the present, the name of Sherburne was unknown to him. He merely
felt that this was the vanguard of Jackson riding forward to set the
trap. The men were now so near that they could be seen with the naked
eye, and the sergeant said tersely:
"At last we've seen what we were afraid we would see.
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