Yet the uncommon dryness, the least rainy summer and autumn in two generations, still prevailed.

The hoofs of Dick's horse left a cloud of dust behind him.

The leaves of the trees were falling already, rustling dryly as they fell.

Brooks that were old friends of his and that he had never known to go dry before were merely chains of yellow pools in a shallow bed.
He watered his horse at one or two of the creeks that still flowed in good volume, and then went on again, sometimes at a gallop.

He passed but one horseman, a farmer who evidently had taken an unusually early start for a mill, as a sack of corn lay across his saddle behind him.
Dick nodded but the farmer stared open-mouthed at the youth in the blue uniform who flew past him.
Dick never looked back and by dawn he was with the army.