Dick concluded that the sharpshooters had been scared off by the flanking force, and that they would have no further trouble with them.

His spirits rose accordingly and there was much otherwise to make them rise.
It was like Heaven to be on horseback in the pleasant country after being cramped up so much in narrow trenches, and there was the thrill of coming action.

They were going to join Sheridan and where he rode idle moments would be few.
"Ping!" a bullet whistled alarmingly near his head and then cut leaves from a sapling beyond him.

The young lieutenant halted the troop instantly, and Sergeant Whitley pointed to a house just visible among some trees.
"That's where it came from, and, since it hasn't been followed by a second, it's likely that only one man is there, and he is lying low, waiting a chance for another bullet," he said.
"Then we'll rout him out," said Dick.
He divided his little troop, in order that it could approach the house from all sides, and then he and the sergeant and six others advanced directly in front.

He knew that if the marksman were still hidden inside he would not fire now, but would seek rather to hide, since he could easily observe from a window that the building was surrounded.
It was a small house, but it was well built and evidently had been occupied by people of substance.