He summoned his courage anew and
rode on bravely, although the sense of loneliness in its full power
remained.
The moonlight was quite bright. The sky was a deep silky blue, in which
myriads of cold stars shone and danced. By and by he skirted for a
while the banks of a small river, which he knew flowed southward into
the Cumberland, and which would not cross his path. The rays of the
moonlight on its frozen surface looked like darts of cold steel.
He left the river presently and the road bent a little toward the north.
Then the skies darkened somewhat but lightened again as the dawn began
to come. The red but cold edge of the sun appeared above the mountains
that he had left behind, and then the morning came, pale and cold.
Dick stopped at a little brook, broke the ice and drank, letting his
horse drink after him. Then he ate heartily of the cold bread and meat
in his knapsack. Pitying his horse he searched until he found a little
grass not yet killed by winter in the lee of the hill, and waited until
he cropped it all.
He mounted and resumed his journey through a country in which the hills
were steadily becoming lower, with larger stretches of level land
appearing between them. By night he should be beyond the last low swell
of the mountains and into the hill region proper. As he calculated
distances his heart gave a great thump. He was to locate Buell some
distance north of Green River, and his journey would take him close to
Pendleton.
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