I may take a quick departure." "Then if you do go I wish you a speedy and safe journey, but I tell you to beware of one, Slade, who has a malicious heart and a long memory." Dick withdrew to his own cell, as he called it, and he passed bitter hours there.

The repulse had struck him a hard blow.

Was it possible that Grant could not win?
And if he could not win what terrible risks he would run in the heart of the Confederacy, with perhaps two armies to fight! He felt that only the Mississippi, that life-line connecting him with the North, could save him.
But as dusk came gradually in the ravine he resolved that he would go.
His supper, as usual, was brought to him by Miss Woodville.

She was as taciturn as ever, speaking scarcely a half-dozen words.

When he asked her if Victor had gone through the battle unharmed she merely nodded, and presently he was alone again, with the dusk deepening in the great gully.
Dick was confident that nobody but Colonel Woodville, his daughter, and himself were in the cave-home.