A Lieutenant at Eighteen Part 17

"I know it very well, for I have ridden my horse over it fifty times,"

answered Milton.

"He will do, Major. Send them off at once."

"Excuse me for a suggestion. I think Lieutenant Lyon will do better if he has about half of our riflemen with him," interposed Captain Gordon, when the two scouts had galloped up the road on their mission.

"That is a good idea," added the captain.

"Rather too many men for a young man to command," said Deck's father, shaking his head.

"He is the best officer in the squadron for this duty," persisted the captain of the first company.

Major Lyon yielded the point, for the aide-de-camp had practically ordered Deck to the command of the expedition. The lieutenant marched his platoon ahead of the column, while Captain Ripley detailed thirty of his men, under the command of Lieutenant b.u.t.ters, to which position the jailer had been elected by the company. Life Knox galloped furiously in advance of Milton for half a mile, till the latter called to him to halt.

"Here is the road across the country," shouted the recruit.

There was a fence across the entrance, which Milton removed without dismounting, for it consisted of only two rails, within his reach. Life rode through the opening, and started his horse into a gallop again.

The subsoil was of gravel, with a thin coating of loam on it, not more than three inches deep, so that the animals had a good footing.

"Are we uns in a hurry?" asked Life, turning his head back to see his fellow scout.

"I should say so," replied Milton; "for the wagon-train may be captured before we come up with it if we delay, though we don't know that it is in any danger; but the pike must be crowded with the enemy hurrying on to the attack of General Thomas's force."

"Then I reckon we had better keep the hosses' legs moving lively,"

replied Life, as he hurried his steed to his best paces.

They soon reached the forest, which extended from one of greater extent on the other side of the pike, though the scouts pa.s.sed through only a projecting corner of it. Beyond the end of the by-road, Milton explained, was a portion of low ground, through which ran a small stream. It was in this soft place that the wagon-train had mired. But it had advanced a mile from the pike; and Milton declared that it was moving by the longest way to hard ground, the shortest being to the road they had used for two miles and a half.

"There they be!" exclaimed Life; and he reined in his foaming steed to take a survey of the surroundings.

"That escort is having a hard time of it," added Milton.

"Thunder and lightning-bugs!" suddenly exclaimed the sergeant. "There's a whole company of Cornfed cavalry after 'em."

"But they are having as hard a time of it as the escort of the wagons, for their horses mire above their knees," added Milton. "But they are getting ahead very slowly in spite of the soft soil."

"But whar be them Cornfeds gwine?" asked Life, who seemed to be enamored of the name into which b.u.t.ters had tortured the word. "They ain't gwine the shortest way to the wagon-train."

"They are not; and I don't understand their game," answered Milton.

Suddenly, at an order from the commander of the company, the "Cornfeds"

dismounted, and proceeded to lead their horses; but the animals still sank deep in the mud, even without the weight of their riders.

"Whar's that stream you spoke on, Milton?" asked Life, as he continued to study the situation.

"Over to the left of you, and I've often fished it."

"I see it; how fur is it from that company?"

"Not more than a hundred rods from the head of the column."

"Is the bottom of the brook mud?"

"Not a bit of it. It is hard gravel below the top soil of mud."

"Then I reckon I know what them fellers are driving at," said Life, apparently pleased with his solution of the question. "How deep is the water?"

"From one to three feet, I should say."

"That's the idee! Them fellers is gwine to take to the stream," said Life. "How wide is it?"

"From twenty to thirty feet in different places."

"Then it is wide enough for them to march in column of fours."

Life dismounted, and climbed a tree, which afforded him a view of the winding stream. It pa.s.sed within twenty rods of the mired wagons, and probably the mud was not so deep nearer the woods as it was farther from it. Leading their horses, the company got along faster than before, but still had some distance to go before they reached the stream. The escort of the train seemed to be discouraged at the prospect before them; though they still worked hard at the wheels, and their progress seemed to be slower than when first seen.

"I reckon we shall have a fight on this medder, Milton, and you must ride back and report to the leftenant," said Life as he descended from the tree. "Them half-starved Cornfeds won't give it up; for a dozen or more wagins, loaded with rations, is a prize to them, to say nothin' of the army in which they train. Your horse is well rested now, and you must make the gravel fly on your way to the road; for I reckon the re-enforcements will be needed as soon as they can get here."

"All right, Sergeant; I will make the distance as fast as we did coming," replied Milton as he started his horse, and immediately hurried him to a gallop.

Life Knox ascended the tree again, seated himself on a branch, and proceeded to watch the "Cornfeds." In about ten minutes more they reached the stream; but they had some difficulty in making their horses go down the steep bank, for the animals were evidently disgusted with their experience in the soft soil. The troopers stamped down the sods; and after making an inclined plane to the water, they rode down into the flowing current. The horses, perhaps concluding that they had made this movement to be watered, fell to drinking as though they had had no water that day.

Life was rather disappointed when he saw the company making so good progress in this novel road, and they soon reached their nearest point to the coveted wagons. The enemy were now within twenty rods of the train. Half an hour had elapsed since Milton left, and it was about time for the re-enforcement to appear.

The sergeant wanted to do something to r.e.t.a.r.d the advance of the company; and, at the top of his ample lungs, he began to give military commands, as though he had a regiment in charge. The enemy heard his voice, and halted where they were in the stream.

CHAPTER XVI

AN IMAGINARY AND A REAL BATTLE

"Company--halt!" yelled Sergeant Knox; and he continued to give orders, as though he were in the act of bringing a column into position.

The enemy halted, as if in obedience to the command of the sergeant on the sh.o.r.e. His commands were plainly heard in the still air of the morning by the troopers in the water; for all of them had turned their gaze in the direction of the woods. But the observer was concealed among the branches of a large tree, and the enemy could see nothing.

The guard of the wagon-train still continued to work at the wheels. So far as they could move the vehicles at all, it was in the direction of the Jamestown Road, still three miles from them. As Life regarded the situation, it was a hopeless case for them, being only twenty rods from the enemy. It is no wonder that they were discouraged, though the officers compelled their men to continue their labor.

The only salvation for the train and the guard was in the arrival of the re-enforcement from the Riverlawn Cavalry and its auxiliary force.

He was confident that this a.s.sistance would come very soon, and he hoped it would come before the enemy left the stream. Life measured with his eye the direction and distances of the edge of the forest, the train, and the cavalry.

His position was in about the centre of a straight portion of the line of the woods, ending at a point nearest to the stream. He had been informed that Lieutenant Lyon would command the detachment that was to move towards the pike. This force could do little or nothing with their horses in the meadow, any more than the Confederate company. The sergeant had arranged in his mind just how the affair should be managed, and believed that Deck would hear his advice, as he often had before, whether he followed it or not.

The enemy remained at a halt in the stream, the officers and most of the troopers watching the woods in the direction from which the commands came; for Life had repeated them at intervals for some time.

Like a prudent commander, the captain seemed to be unwilling to continue his fight with the mud until the unseen enemy, if there was one, had been seen, and his strength measured.