Ugh! I still taste the red soil of the Old Dominion." "Come, Captain! Let us give the horses a chance to prove their blood.
These roads will be paste in a few hours." The dawn was breaking sullenly, and out of a gray, low-hanging mist a light rain fell in the soft, monotonous fashion of mountain rain.

Much of the time it was necessary to maintain single file; and Armitage rode ahead.

The fog grew thicker as they advanced; but they did not lessen their pace, which had now dropped to a steady trot.
Suddenly, as they swept on beyond Lamar, they heard the beat of hoofs and halted.
"Bully for us! We've cut in ahead of them.

Can you count them, Claiborne ?" "There are three horses all right enough, and they're forcing the beasts.
What's the word ?" "Drive them back! Ready--here we go!" roared Armitage in a voice intended to be heard.
They yelled at the top of their voices as they charged, plunging into the advancing trio after a forty-yard gallop.
"'Not later than Friday'-- back you go!" shouted Armitage, and laughed aloud at the enemy's rout.

One of the horses--it seemed from its rider's yells to be Chauvenet's--turned and bolted, and the others followed back the way they had come.
Soon they dropped their pace to a trot, but the trio continued to fly before them.
"They're rattled," said Claiborne, "and the fog isn't helping them any." "We're getting close to my place," said Armitage; and as he spoke two shots fired in rapid succession cracked faintly through the fog and they jerked up their horses.
"It's Oscar! He's a good way ahead, if I judge the shots right." "If he turns them back we ought to hear their horses in a moment," observed Claiborne.