It was more than the Union lads could stand. A heavy mass of infantry, Colonel Winchester's regiment in the very front of it, marched forward to drive back these impertinent horsemen. They charged with so much impetuosity that Stuart's cavalry abandoned such dangerous ground. All the pickets were drawn in and they retreated in haste across the stream, the water foaming up in spurts about them beneath the pursuing bullets. Then came a silence and a great looking back and forth. The threatening armies stared at each other across the water, but throughout the afternoon they lay idle. The pitiless August sun burned on and the dust that had been trodden up by the scores of thousands hung in clouds low, but almost motionless. Dick went down into a little creek, emptying into the Rappahannock, and bathed his face and hands. Hundreds of others were doing the same. The water brought a great relief. Then he went back to Colonel Winchester and his comrades, and waited patiently with them until evening. He remembered Colonel Winchester's words earlier in the day, and, as the darkness came, he began to wonder what Lee and Jackson were thinking. He believed that two such redoubtable commanders must have formed a plan by this time, and, perhaps in the end, it would be worth a hundred thousand men to know it. But he could only stare into the darkness and guess and guess. And one guess was as good as another. The night seemed portentous to him. It was full of sinister omens. He strove to pierce the darkness on the other shore with his eyes, and see what was going on there, but he distinguished only a black background and the dim light of fires. Dick was not wrong. The Confederate commanders did have a plan and the omens which seemed sinister to him were sinister in fact. Jackson with his forces was marching up his side of the Rappahannock and the great brain under the old slouch hat was working hard. When Lee and Jackson found that the Union army on the Rapidan had slipped away from them they felt that they had wasted a great opportunity to strike the retreating force before it reached the Rappahannock, and that, as they followed, the situation of the Confederacy would become most critical. They would leave McClellan and the Army of the Potomac nearer to Richmond, their own capital, than they were. Nevertheless Lee, full of daring despite his years, followed, and the dangers were growing thicker every hour around Pope. Dick, with his regiment, moved the next morning up the river. The enemy was in plain view beyond the stream, and Shepard and the other spies reported that the Southern army showed no signs of retiring. But Shepard had said also that he would not be able to cross the river again. The hostile scouts and sharpshooters had become too vigilant. Yet he was sure that Lee and Jackson would attempt to force a passage higher up, where the drought had made good fords.