Dick slept very well that night. The water from the little spring, gushing out from under the rock, had refreshed him greatly. He would have rejoiced in another bath, such as one as they had luxuriated in that night before Frankfort, but it was a thing not be dreamed of now, and making the best of things as they were, he had gone to sleep among his comrades.  
The dryness of the ground had at least one advantage. They had not colds and rheumatism to fear, and, with warm earth beneath them and fresh air above, they slept more soundly than if they had been in their own beds. But while they were sleeping the wary Sergeant Whitley was slipping forward among the woods and ravines. He had received permission from Colonel Winchester, confirmed by a higher officer, to go on a scout, and he meant to use his opportunity. He had made many a scouting trip on the plains, where there was less cover than here, and there torture and death were certain if captured, but here it would only be imprisonment among men who were in no sense his personal enemies, and who would not ill-treat him. So the sergeant took plenty of chances.
 
He passed the union pickets, entered a ravine which led up between two hills and followed it for some distance. In a cross ravine he found a little stream of water, flowing down from some high, rocky ground above, and, at one point, he came to a pool several yards across and three or four feet deep. It was cool and fresh, and the sergeant could not resist the temptation to slip off his clothes and dive into it once or twice. He slipped his clothes on again, the whole not consuming more than five minutes, and then went on much better equipped for war than he had been five minutes before.
 
Then he descended the hills and came down into a valley crossed by a creek, which in ordinary times had plenty of water, but which was now reduced to a few muddy pools. The Southern pickets did not reach so far, and save for the two tiny streams in the hills this was all the water that the Northern army could reach. Farther down, its muddy and detached stream lay within the Confederate lines.
 
Crossing the creek's bed the sergeant ascended a wooded ridge, and now he proceeded with extreme caution. He had learned that beyond this ridge was another creek containing much more water than the first. Upon its banks at the crossing of the road stood the village of Perryville, and there, according to his best information and belief, lay the Southern army. But he meant to see with his own eyes and hear with his own ears, and thus return to McCook's force with absolute certainty.
 
The sergeant, as he had expected, found cover more plentiful than it was on the plains, but he never stalked an Indian camp with more caution. He knew that the most of the Southern scouts and skirmishers were as wary as the Indians that once hunted in these woods, and that, unless he used extreme care, he was not likely to get past them.
 
He came at last to a point where he lay down flat on his stomach and wormed himself along, keeping in the thickest shadow of woods and bushes. The night was bright, and although his own body was blended with the ground, he could see well about him. The sergeant was a very patient man. Life as a lumberman and then as a soldier on the plains had taught him to look where he was crawling. He spent a full hour worming himself up to the crest of that ridge and a little way down on the other side. In the course of the last fifteen minutes he passed directly between two alert and vigilant Southern pickets. They looked his way several times, but the sergeant was so much in harmony with the color scheme of the earth on which he crept, that no blame lay upon them for not seeing him.
 
The sergeant was already hearing with his own ears. He heard these pickets and others talking in low voices of the Northern army and of their own. They knew that Buell's great force was approaching from different points and that a battle was expected on the morrow. He knew this already, but he wanted to know how much of the Confederate army lay in Perryville, and he intended to see with his own eyes.
 
Having passed the first line of pickets the sergeant advanced more rapidly, although he still kept well under cover. Advancing thus he reached the bed of the creek and hid himself against the bank, allowing his body to drop down in the water, in order that he might feel the glorious cool thrill again, and also that he might be hidden to the neck. His rifle and ammunition he laid at the edge of the bank within reach. Situated thus comfortably, he used his excellent eyes with excellent results. He could see Perryville on his left, and also a great camp on some heights that ran along the creek. There were plenty of lights in this camp, and, despite the lateness of the hour, officers were passing about.
 
It was obvious to the sergeant that many thousands of soldiers were on those heights, and now he wanted to hear again with his own ears. He did not dare go any nearer, and the water in the creek was growing cold to his body. But his patience was great, and still he waited, only his head showing above the water, and it hidden in the black gloom of the bank's shadows.
 
His reward came by-and-by. A number of cavalrymen led their horses down to the creek to drink, and while the horses drank and then blew the water away from their noses, the men talked at some length, enabling the sergeant to pick up important scraps of information.
 
He learned that the heights were occupied by Hardee with two divisions. It was the same Hardee, the famous tactician who had been one of the Southern generals at Shiloh. Polk was expected, but he had not yet come up. Bragg, too, would be there.
 
The brave sergeant's heart thumped as he listened. He gathered that Polk, perhaps, could not arrive before noon, and here was a brilliant chance to destroy a large part of the Southern army early in the morning.
 
He waited until all the cavalrymen had gone away with their horses, and then he crawled cautiously out of the stream. His limbs were cold and stiff, but his enforced exercise in crawling soon brought back their flexibility. He passed between the pickets again, and, when he was safely beyond their hearing, he rose and stretched himself again and again.
 
The sergeant greatly preferred walking to crawling. Primitive men might have crawled, but to do so made the modern man's knees uncommonly sore. So he continued to stretch, to inhale great draughts of air, and to feel proudly that he was a man who walked upright and not a bear or a pig creeping on four legs through the bushes.
 
He reached his own army not long afterward, and, walking among the thousands of sleeping forms, reached the tree under which Colonel Winchester slept.
 
“Colonel,” he said gently.
 
The colonel awoke instantly and sat up. Despite the dusk he recognized Whitley at once.
 
“Well, sergeant?” he said.
 
“I've been clean over the ridge to the rebel camp. I reached the next creek and lay on the heights just beyond it. I've seen with my own eyes and I've heard with my own ears. They've only two divisions there, though they're expectin' Polk to come up in the mornin' an' Bragg, too. Colonel, I'm a good reckoner, as I've seen lots of war, and they ain't got more `n fifteen thousand men there on the creek, while if we get all our divisions together we can hit `em with nigh on to sixty thousand. For God's sake, Colonel, can't we do it?”
 
“We ought to, and if I can do anything, we will. Sergeant, you've done a great service at a great risk, and all of us owe you thanks. I shall see General McCook at once.”
 
The sergeant, forgetting that he was wet to the skin, stretched himself in the dry grass near Dick and his comrades, and soon fell fast asleep, while his clothes dried upon him. But Colonel Winchester went to General McCook's tent and insisted upon awakening him. The general received him eagerly and listened with close attention.
 
“This man Whitley is trustworthy?” he said.
 
“Absolutely. He has had years of experience on the plains, fighting Sioux, Cheyennes and other Indians, and he has been with me through most of the war so far. There is probably no more skillful scout, and none with a clearer head and better judgment in either army.”
 
“Then, Colonel, we owe him thanks, and you thanks for letting him go. We'll certainly bring on a battle to-morrow, and we ought to have all our army present. I shall send a messenger at once to General Buell with your news. Messengers shall also go to Crittenden, Rousseau, and the other generals. But you recognize, of course, that General Buell is the commander-in-chief, and that it is for him to make the final arrangements.”
 
“I do, sir,” said the colonel, as he saluted and retired. He went back to the point where his own little regiment lay. He knew every man and boy in it, and he had known them all in the beginning, when they were many times more. But few of the splendid regiment with which he had started south a year and a half before remained. He looked at Dick and Warner and Pennington and the sergeant and wondered if they would be present to answer to the roll the next night, or if he himself would be there?
 
The colonel cherished no illusions. He was not sanguine that the whole union army would come up, and even if it came, and if victory should be won it would be dark and bloody. He knew how the Southerners fought, and here more so than anywhere else, it would be brother against brother. This state was divided more than any other, and, however the battle went, kindred would meet kindred. Colonel Kenton, Dick's uncle, a man whom he liked and admired, was undoubtedly across those ridges, and they might meet face to face in the coming battle.
 
It was far into the morning now and the colonel did not sleep again. He saw the messengers leaving the tent of General McCook, and he knew that the commander of the division was active. Just what success he would have would remain for the morrow to say. The colonel saw the dawn come. The dry fields and forests reddened with the rising sun, and then the army rose up from its sleep. The cooks had already prepared coffee and food.
 
“Show me the enemy,” said Pennington fiercely, “and as soon as I finish this cup of coffee, I'll go over and give him the thrashing he needs.”
 
“He's just across those ridges, sir, and on the banks of the far creek,” said Sergeant Whitley.
 
“How do you know?”
 
“I made a call on him last night.”
 
“You did? And what did he say?”
 
“I didn't send in my card. I just took a look at his front door and came away. He's at home, waiting and willing to give us a fight.”
 
“Well, it's a fine day for a battle anyway. Look what a splendid sun is rising! And you can see the soft haze of fall over the hills and woods.”
 
“It's not as fine a fall as usual in Kentucky,” said Dick, in an apologetic tone to Warner and Pennington. “It's been so dry that the leaves are falling too early, and the reds, the yellows and the browns are not so bright.”
 
“Never mind, Dickie, boy,” said Warner consolingly. “We'll see it in a better year, because Pennington and I are both coming back to spend six months with you when this war is over. I've already accepted the invitation. So get ready for us, Dick.”
 
“It's an understood thing now,” said Dick sincerely. “There go the trumpets, and they mean for us to get in line.”
 
A large portion of the division was already on the way, having started at five o'clock, and the little Winchester regiment was soon marching, too. The day was again hot. October, even, did not seem able to break that singular heat, and the dust was soon billowing about them in columns, stinging and burning them. The sergeant the night before had taken a short cut through the hills, but the brigades, needing wide spaces, marched along the roads and through the fields. A portion of their own army was hidden from them by ridges and forest, and Dick did not know whether Buell with the other half of the army had come up.
 
After a long and exhausting march they stopped, and the Winchester regiment and the Ohio lads concluded that they had been wrong after all. No battle would be fought that day. They were willing now, too, to postpone it, as they were almost exhausted by heat and thirst, and that stinging, burning dust was maddening. A portion of their line rested on the first creek, and they drank eagerly of the muddy water. Dick saw before him fields in which the corn stood thick and heavy. The fields were divided by hedges which cut off the view somewhat and which the sergeant said would furnish great ambush for sharpshooters.
 
The men were now allowed to lie down, but most of them were still panting with the heat. The three boys on horseback rode with Colonel Winchester to the crest of a low hill, just beyond the first creek. From that point they clearly saw the enemy gathered in battle array along the second stream. Dick, with his glasses, saw the batteries, and could even mark the sun-browned faces of the men.
 
“Has General Buell come?” he asked Colonel Winchester.
 
“He has not. Not half of our army is here.”
 
The answer was made with emphasis and chagrin. There was a report that Buell did not intend to attack until the following day, when he would have his numbers well in hand.
 
“Under the circumstances,” said the colonel, “we have to wait. Better get off your horses, boys, and hunt the shade.”
 
They rode back and obeyed. It was now getting well along into the afternoon. Thousands of soldiers lay on the grass in the shadiest places they could find. Many were asleep. Overhead the sun burned and burned in a sky of absolute blazing white.
 
A cannon boomed suddenly and then another. The artillery of the two armies watching one another had opened at long range, but the fire was so distant that it did no harm. Dick and his comrades watched the shells in their flight, noting the trails of white smoke they left behind, and then the showers of earth that flew up when they burst. It was rather a pleasant occupation to watch them. In a way it broke the monotony of a long summer day.
 
They did not know that Polk, the bishop-general, was arriving at that moment in the Southern camp with five thousand men. Bragg had come, too, but he left the command to Polk, who outranked Hardee, and the three together listened to the long-range cannonade, while they also examined with powerful glasses the union army which was now mostly lying on the ground.
 
Dick himself felt a strong temptation to sleep. The march through the heat that morning had been dusty and tiresome, and the warm wind that blew over him made his eyelids very heavy. The cannonade itself was conducive to slumber. The guns were fired at regular intervals, which created a sort of rhythm. The shells with their trailing white smoke ceased to interest him, and his eyelids grew heavier. It was now about 2:30 o'clock and as his eyes were about to close a sudden shout made him open them wide and then spring to his feet.
 
“Look out! Look out!” cried Sergeant Whitley, “The Johnnies are coming!”
 
The union forces in an instant were in line, rifles ready and eager. The gray masses were already charging across the fields and hills, while their cannon made a sudden and rapid increase in the volume of fire. Their batteries were coming nearer, too, and the shells hitherto harmless were now shrieking and hissing among their ranks, killing and wounding.
 
Dick looked around him. The members of the slim Winchester regiment were all veterans; but thousands of the Ohio lads were recruits who had never seen battle before. Now shell and shot were teaching them the terrible realities. He saw many a face grow pale, as his own had often grown pale, in the first minutes of battle, but he did not see any one flinch.
 
The Northern cannon posted in the intervals and along the edges of the woods opened with a mighty crash, and as the enemy came nearer the riflemen began to send a hail of bullets. But the charge did not break. It was led by Buckner, taken at Donelson, but now exchanged, and some of the best troops of the South followed him.
 
“Steady! Steady!” shouted Colonel Winchester. The ranks were so close that he and all of his staff, having no room for their horses, had dismounted, and they stood now in the front rank, encouraging the men to meet the charge. But the rush of the Southern veterans was so sudden and fierce that despite every effort of valor the division gave way, suffering frightful losses.
 
Two of the union generals seeking to hold their men were killed. Each side rushed forward reinforcements. A stream of Confederat............