Refreshed by abundant sleep and good food he was in the highest of spirits. They were embarked upon a great adventure and he believed that it would be successful. His confidence was shared by all those about him. Meanwhile the army advanced in diverging columns upon the Mississippi capital.

Jackson, on Pearl River, had suddenly assumed a vast importance in Dick's mind, and yet it was but a tiny place, not more than three or four thousand inhabitants. The South was almost wholly agricultural, and cities, great in a political and military sense, were in reality but towns. Richmond, itself the capital of the Confederacy, around which so much centered, had only forty thousand people.

The Winchester regiment was detached that afternoon and sent to join the column under McPherson, which was expected to reach Jackson first. Dick was mounted again, and he rode with Warner and Pennington on either side of him. They speculated much on what they would find when they approached Jackson.

"If Joe Johnston is there," said Warner, "I think we'll have a hard fight. You'll remember that he did great work against us in Virginia, until he was wounded."

"And they'll know, of course, just when to expect us and in what force," said Dick. "Slade will tell them that. He probably has a large body of spies and scouts working under him. But I don't think he'll come inside our camp again."

"Not likely since he's been recognized," said Warner, thoughtfully. "But I don't think General Grant is afraid of anything ahead. That's why he made the separation from our own world so complete, and our men are out cutting down the telegraph lines, so the Johnnies in Jackson can't communicate with their own government either. It's important to us that we take Jackson before Pemberton with his army can come up."

Warner had estimated the plan correctly. Grant, besides cutting himself off from his own superiors at Washington, was also destroying communication between the garrison of Jackson and Pemberton's army of Vicksburg, which was not far away. The two united might beat him, but he meant to defeat them separately, and then besiege Vicksburg. It was a complicated plan, depending upon quickness, courage and continued success. Yet the mind of Grant, though operating afterward on fields of greater numbers, was never clearer or more vigorous.

They went into camp again after dark, knowing that Jackson was but a short distance away, and they expected to attack early in the morning. Dick carried another dispatch to Sherman, who was only a little more than two miles from them, and on his way back he joined Colonel Winchester, who, with Warner, Pennington and a hundred infantry, had come out for a scout. The dismounted men were chosen because they wished to beat up a difficult piece of wooded country.

They went directly toward Jackson, advancing very cautiously through the forest, the mounted officers riding slowly. The night was hot and dark, moon and stars obscured by drifting clouds. Pennington, who was an expert on weather, announced that another storm was coming.

"I can feel a dampness in the air," he said. "I'm willing to risk my reputation as a prophet and say that the dawn will come with rain."

"I hope it won't be a big rain," said Colonel Winchester, "because if it is it will surely delay our attack. Our supply of cartridges is small, and we can't risk wetting them."

Pennington persisted that a storm was at hand. His father had taught him, he said, always to observe the weather signs on the great Nebraska plains. They were nearly always hoping for rain there, and he had learned to smell it before it came. He could smell it now in the same way here in Mississippi.

His opinion did not waver, when the clouds floated away for a while, disclosing a faint moon and a few stars. They were now on the banks of a brook, flowing through the wood, and Colonel Winchester thought he saw a movement in the forest beyond it. It was altogether likely that so skillful a leader as Joe Johnston would have out bodies of scouts, and he stopped, bidding his men to take cover.

Dick sat on his horse by the colonel's side under the thick boughs of a great tree, and studied the thickets before them.