At the narrower part, on Fisher's Hill, Early had strong fortifications, defended by his finest infantry, and Colonel Winchester did not deem it likely that Sheridan would make a frontal attack upon a position so well defended.
It was about noon when the cavalry arrived before the Southern works.
Dick, through his glasses, clearly saw the guns and columns of infantry, and also a body of Southern horse, drawn up on one flank of the hill.
He fancied that the Invincibles were among them, but at the distance he could not pick them from the rest.
The regiment remained stationary, awaiting the orders of Sheridan, and Dick still used his glasses.

He swept them again and again across the Confederate lines, and then he turned his attention to the mountains which here hemmed in the valley to such a straitened width.

He saw a signal station of the enemy on a culminating ridge called Three Top Mountain, and as the flags there were waving industriously he knew that every movement of the Union army would be communicated to Early's troops below.
Yet the whole scene despite the fact that it was war, red war, appealed to Dick's sense of the romantic and beautiful.

The fertile valley looked picturesque with its woods and fields, and on either side rose the ranges as if to protect it.

Mountains like trees always appealed to him, and the steep slopes were wooded densely.