"Did you get what you wanted?" he asked in a whisper.

"We did, Billy," answered Harry.

"I saw 'em sendin' up shootin' stars an' other shootin' stars way off to the east answerin', an' I didn't know what it meant."

"It was their vanguard in the Gap, talking to their army several miles to the eastward. But we lay in the bushes, Billy, and we heard what their officers said. All that you heard was true. Ten thousand Yankees will be through the pass in the morning, and Stonewall Jackson will have great cause to be grateful to William Pomeroy, aged twelve."

The boy's eyes fairly glowed, but he was a man of action.

"Then I guess that we've got to jump on our horses and ride lickety split down the valley to give warnin' to General Jackson," he said.

Harry knew what was passing in the boy's mind, that he would go with them all the way to Jackson, and he did not have the heart to say anything to the contrary just then. But Dalton replied:

"Right you are, Billy. We ride now as if the woods were burning behind us."