A waterfall mumbled somewhere in the neighborhood. The pines and hemlocks near the summit sighed drearily. A gray fox, which had probably just supped off a pheasant, sat on a log and barked out his gluttonous satisfaction. A wildcat, as yet superless, screamed its envy from a cliff a half a mile away. “I can't heah anything of Aunt Debby an' the others,” said Fortner, at length; “so I reckon they're clean over the mounting, an' bout safe by this time. Them beasts are purty good travelers, I imagine, an' they hain't let no grass grow in under the'r hufs.” “But the Rebels are coming, hand over hand,” said Harry, who had been watching to the left and listening. “I hear them quite plainly. Yes, there they are,” he continued, as two or three galloped around a turn in the road, followed at a little interval by others. The metallic clang of the rapid hoof-beats on the rocks rang through the somber aisles of the forest. Noisy fox and aniphonal wildcat stopped to listen to this invasion of sound. “Quick! let's get in cover,” said Fortner. “Ye make fur thet rock up thar,” said Fortner to Harry, pointing to a spot several hundred yards above them, “and stay thar tell I come. Keep close in the shadder, so's they won't see ye.” “It seems to me that I ought to stay with you,' said Harry, indecisively. “No; go. Ye can't do no good heah. One's better nor two. I'll be up thar soon. Go, quick.” There was no time for debate, and Harry did as bidden. Fortner stepped into the inky shadow of a large rock, against which he leaned. The great broad face of the rock, gray from its covering of minute ash-colored lichens, was toward the pursuers, and shone white as marble in the flood of moonlight. The darkness seemed banked up around him, but within his arm's length it was as light as day. The long rifle barrel reached from the darkness into the light, past the corner of the rock against which it rested. The bright rays made the little “bead” near the muzzle gleam like a diamond, and lighted up the slit as fine as a hair in the hind-sight. Three little clicks, as if of twigs breaking under a rabbit's foot, told that the triggers had been set and the hammer raised.