Chapter XIII. Perryville

Dick slept very well that night. The water from the little spring, gushing out from under the rock, had refreshed him greatly. He would have rejoiced in another bath, such as one as they had luxuriated in that night before Frankfort, but it was a thing not be dreamed of now, and making the best of things as they were, he had gone to sleep among his comrades.

The dryness of the ground had at least one advantage. They had not colds and rheumatism to fear, and, with warm earth beneath them and fresh air above, they slept more soundly than if they had been in their own beds. But while they were sleeping the wary Sergeant Whitley was slipping forward among the woods and ravines. He had received permission from Colonel Winchester, confirmed by a higher officer, to go on a scout, and he meant to use his opportunity. He had made many a scouting trip on the plains, where there was less cover than here, and there torture and death were certain if captured, but here it would only be imprisonment among men who were in no sense his personal enemies, and who would not ill-treat him. So the sergeant took plenty of chances.

He passed the Union pickets, entered a ravine which led up between two hills and followed it for some distance. In a cross ravine he found a little stream of water, flowing down from some high, rocky ground above, and, at one point, he came to a pool several yards across and three or four feet deep. It was cool and fresh, and the sergeant could not resist the temptation to slip off his clothes and dive into it once or twice. He slipped his clothes on again, the whole not consuming more than five minutes, and then went on much better equipped for war than he had been five minutes before.

Then he descended the hills and came down into a valley crossed by a creek, which in ordinary times had plenty of water, but which was now reduced to a few muddy pools. The Southern pickets did not reach so far, and save for the two tiny streams in the hills this was all the water that the Northern army could reach. Farther down, its muddy and detached stream lay within the Confederate lines.

Crossing the creek's bed the sergeant ascended a wooded ridge, and now he proceeded with extreme caution. He had learned that beyond this ridge was another creek containing much more water than the first. Upon its banks at the crossing of the road stood the village of Perryville, and there, according to his best information and belief, lay the Southern army. But he meant to see with his own eyes and hear with his own ears, and thus return to McCook's force with absolute certainty.

The sergeant, as he had expected, found cover more plentiful than it was on the plains, but he never stalked an Indian camp with more caution. He knew that the most of the Southern scouts and skirmishers were as wary as the Indians that once hunted in these woods, and that, unless he used extreme care, he was not likely to get past them.