“Jockeys have won races against bigger odds than that,” he mused joyously, “with only a purse as reward. It’ll go hard if I can’t do as well with the country’s fortunes maybe as my stake. I’ll win out, or--I won’t be alive to know I’m a failure.” * * * * * For twenty miles Dad rode in safety. That did not mean he covered twenty straight-away miles of his journey. On the contrary, he lessened the distance between himself and Hooker’s headquarters by less than twelve miles. Avoiding main roads as far as possible; reconnoitering and then making détours when danger seemed to threaten or when fresh hoof-marks denoted the recent passing of cavalrymen; going out of his way to take advantage of hillock-and-forest shelter--he had almost doubled the distance that would have been needful had he followed the direct route. Thus far he had met with no mishap. Once he had plunged into a thicket, halted abruptly there, and dismounted as a troop of gray-coated patrols jingled past on the road barely twenty yards distant. Cautiously reaching downward, he had snatched a handful of sweet fern, and with it had rubbed his horse’s nostrils; lest the beast catching the scent of the patrols’ horses, should whinny. Again he had turned quickly into a high-banked and twisting lane at sight of a dust-cloud far ahead and thus avoided a battalion of Jackson’s cavalry. A third time he had spurred his horse into a gully of red clay on sound of hoof-beats, just before a band of guerrillas, or bushwhackers, had cantered by. His senses super-tense, calling on himself for every scouting trick that old-time experience could devise, Dad wound his tortuous way safely through a score of pitfalls that would have entrapped a lesser man. The farther he rode the more fully he realized the truth of his general’s forecast that the chances against his winning through to Hooker were ten to one. In fact, the prospect of any one’s making the whole trip in safety was negligible. The whole countryside was alive with Confederates. Dad could see traces of their passage everywhere. More than once he was tempted to dismount and trust to the greater safety, if lesser speed, of a foot journey. Halting, as usual, before rounding the bend of a byroad, he strained his ears to catch any sound of riders ahead. There was only the drowsy spring silence. He trotted around the wooded curve--and passed four men who sprawled, half asleep, on the wayside grass, their grazing horses hobbled behind them. A glance told Dad the occupation and character of the resting quartet. They were guerrillas; such as infected both Northern and Southern armies. Irregular troops in demi-uniform, who pursued a system of free-lance fighting, and often of free-lance plundering as well. He had ridden too far into their line of vision to retreat. His uniform was an instant introduction. The fine horse that he rode was, alone, worth a chase from these horse-loving Confederate marauders.