Now and then, among clumps of trees, colonial houses with their pillared porticoes appeared.
It was a rare and beautiful scene, appealing with great force to Dick.
There was nothing to tell of war save the Northern forces just beneath them, and he would not look down.

But he did look back, and saw the broad band of the Potomac, and beyond it the white dome of the Capitol and the roof of Washington.

But his gaze turned again to the South, where his absorbing interest lay, and once more he viewed the quiet country, rolling away until it touched the horizon rim.

The afternoon was growing late, and great terraces of red and gold were heaping above one another in the sky until they reached the zenith.
"Try the glasses for a moment, Dick," said Colonel Newcomb, as he passed them to the boy.
Dick swept them across the South in a great semi-circle, and now new objects rose upon the surface of the earth.

He saw distinctly the long chain of the Blue Ridge rising on the west, then blurring in the distance into a solid black rampart.