Mason, that of
all the hundreds of thousands of men in the Northern armies, of all the
twenty or twenty-five million people on the Northern side, there's just
one, that one a boy, and that boy you, who knows that Albert Sidney
Johnston is here."
"Held fast as I am, I'm sorry now that I do know it."
"I can't say that I blame you. I said you'd give a million dollars to
be able to tell, but if you're to measure such things with money it
would be worth a hundred million an' more, yes, it would be cheap at
three or four hundred millions for the North to know it. But, after all,
you can't measure such things with money. Maybe you think I talk a heap,
but I'm stirred some, too."
They rode on a little farther over the hilly ground, covered with thick
forest or dense, tall scrub. But there were troops, troops, everywhere,
and now and then the batteries. They were mostly boys, like their
antagonists of the North, and the sleep of most of them was the sleep
of exhaustion, after a forced and rapid march over heavy ground from
Corinth. But Dick knew that they would be fresh in the morning when
they rose from the forest, and rushed upon their unwarned foe.
CHAPTER XIV
THE DARK EVE OF SHILOH
Dick noticed as they went further into the forest how complete was
the concealment of a great army, possible only in a country wooded
so heavily, and in the presence of a careless enemy. The center was
like the front of the Southern force.
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