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 and 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.
It might be a bird. But he waited. Again there was an agitation of the
bushes, and then, so suddenly that it almost startled a cry from him,
the bushes parted and a face peered out. It was a face covered with
several weeks' growth of ginger-colored beard. The eyes were blue and
wide apart, with laughter-wrinkles in the comers that showed despite the
tired and anxious expression of the whole face.
All this he could see with microscopic clearness, for the distance was
no more than twenty feet. And all this he saw in such brief time, that
he saw it as he lifted his carbine to his shoulder. He glanced along the
sights, and knew that he was gazing upon a man who was as good as dead.
It was impossible to miss at such point blank range.
But he did not shoot. Slowly he lowered the carbine and watched. A
hand, clutching a water-bottle, became visible and the ginger beard bent
downward to fill the bottle. He could hear the gurgle of the water. Then
arm and bottle and ginger beard disappeared behind the closing bushes.
A long time he waited, when, with thirst unslaked, he crept back to his
horse, rode slowly across the sun-washed clearing, and passed into the
shelter of the woods beyond.