HE was a young man, not more than twenty-four or five, and he might have sat his horse with the careless grace of his youth had he not been so catlike and tense.His black eyes roved everywhere, catching the movements of twigs and branches where small birds hopped, questing ever onward through the changing vistas of trees and brush, and returning always to the clumps of undergrowth on either side.And as he watched, so did he listen, though he rode on in silence, save for the boom of heavy guns from far to the west.This had been sounding monotonously in his ears for hours, and only its cessation could have aroused his notice.For he had business closer to hand.Across his saddle-bow was balanced a carbine.
So tensely was he strung, that a bunch of quail, exploding into flight from under his horse's nose, startled him to such an extent that automatically, instantly, he had reined in and fetched the carbine halfway to his shoulder.He grinned sheepishly, recovered himself, and rode on.So tense was he, so bent upon the work he had to do, that the sweat stung his eyes unwiped, and unheeded rolled down his nose and spattered his saddle pommel.The band of his cavalryman's hat was fresh-stained with sweat.The roan horse under him was likewise wet.It was high noon of a breathless day of heat.Even the birds and squirrels did not dare the sun, but sheltered in shady hiding places among the trees.
Man and horse were littered with leaves and dusted with yellow pollen, for the open was ventured no more than was compulsory.
They kept to the brush and trees, and invariably the man halted and peered out before crossing a dry glade or naked stretch of upland pasturage.He worked always to the north, though his way was devious, and it was from the north that he seemed most to apprehend that for which he was looking.He was no coward, but his courage was only that of the average civilized man, and he was looking to live, not die.
Up a small hillside he followed a cowpath through such dense scrub that he was forced to dismount and lead his horse.But when the path swung around to the west, he abandoned it and headed to the north again along the oak-covered top of the ridge.
The ridge ended in a steep descent-so steep that he zigzagged back and forth across the face of the slope, sliding and stumbling among the dead leaves and matted vines and keeping a watchful eye on the horse above that threatened to fall down upon him.The sweat ran from him, and the pollen-dust, settling pungently in mouth and nostrils, increased his thirst.Try as he would, nevertheless the descent was noisy, and frequently he stopped, panting in the dry heat an d listening for any warning from beneath.
At the bottom he came out on a flat, so densely forested that he could not make out its extent.Here the character of the woods changed, and he was able to remount.Instead of the twisted hillside oaks, tall straight trees, big-trunked and prosperous, rose from the damp fat soil.Only here and there were thickets, easily avoided, while he encountered winding, park-like glades where the cattle had pastured in the days before war had run them off.
His progress was more rapid now, as he came down into the valley, and at the end of half an hour he halted at an ancient rail fence on the edge of a clearing.He did not like the openness of it, yet his path lay across to the fringe of trees that marked the banks of the stream.It was a mere quarter of a mile across that open, but the thought of venturing out in it was repugnant.A rifle, a score of them, a thousand, might lurk in that fringe by the stream.
Twice he essayed to start, and twice he paused.He was appalled by his own loneliness.The pulse of war that beat from the West suggested the companionship of battling thousands; here was naught but silence, and himself, and possible death-dealing bullets from a myriad ambushes.And yet his task was to find what he feared to find.He must on, and on, till somewhere, some time, he encountered another man, or other men, from the other side, scouting, as he was scouting, to make report, as he must make report, of having come in touch.
Changing his mind, he skirted inside the woods for a distance, and again peeped forth.This time, in the middle of the clearing, he saw a small farmhouse.There were no signs of life.No smoke curled from the chimney, not a barnyard fowl clucked and strutted.The kitchen door stood open, and he gazed so long and hard into the black aperture that it seemed almost that a farmer's wife must emerge at any moment.
He licked the pollen and dust from his dry lips, stiffened himself, mind and body, and rode out into the blazing sunshine.
Nothing stirred.He went on past the house, and approached the wall of trees and bushes by the river's bank.One thought persisted maddeningly.It was of the crash into his body of a high-velocity bullet.It made him feel very fragile and defenseless, and he crouched lower in the saddle.
Tethering his horse in the edge of the wood, he continued a hundred yards on foot till he came to the stream.Twenty feet wide it was, without perceptible current, cool and inviting, and he was very thirsty.But he waited inside his screen of leafage, his eyes fixed on the screen on the opposite side.To make the wait endurable, he sat down, his carbine resting on his knees.The minutes passed, and slowly his tenseness relaxed.At last he decided there was no danger; but just as he prepared to part the bushes and bend down to the water, a movement among the opposite bushes caught his eye.
