And the Raccoon is a stream from all time dedicated to noble uses and destined to hold mighty kingdoms in leash. One might well hesitate before crossing this wayward Rubicon. The Mississippi is merely an excuse for appropriations, the Potomac the sporting ground of congressmen and shad. No other known stream is so happily calculated as the foamy Raccoon to delight at once the gods of battle and the gentle sons of song. It marks one of those impatient flings of nature in which, bored with creating orderly, broadly-flowing streams, or varying the landscape with quiet woodlands or meadows, she abandons herself for a moment to madness and, shaking water and rock together as in a dice-box, splashes them out with joyous laughter.
Jerry Dangerfield, seated upon her horse on a slight rise under a clump of trees a little way back from the stream, coolly munched a cracker and sipped coffee from a tincup. Ardmore, again calm, now that Daubenspeck had been spurred to action, smoked his pipe and watched the army prepare to advance.
Beyond the creek, and somewhat removed from it on the South Carolina side, a rifle cracked, and far against the blue arch a huge, black, languorous object, rising with a last supreme effort, as though to claim refuge of heaven, fell clawing at space with sprawling wings, then collapsed and pitched earthward until the trees on the farther shore hid it from sight. A feeble cheer rose in the distance.
"They sound pretty tame over there," remarked Ardmore critically. "There's no ginger in that cheer."
"The ginger," suggested Colonel Daubenspeck ironically, "is probably all in their stomachs."
One gun from the battery was brought down and placed on a slight eminence to support the advance, for which all was now in readiness. The bugle sang again, and the men of one company sprang forward and began leaping from rock to rock, silently, steadily moving upon the farther shore. Here and there some brown khaki-clad figure slipped and splashed into the stream with a wild confusion of brown leggings; but on they went intrepidly. The captain, leading his men through the torrent, was first to gain the southern shore. He waved his sword, and with a shout his men clambered up the bank and formed in neat alignment. This was hardly accomplished before a uniformed figure dashed from a neighboring blackberry thicket and waved a white handkerchief. He bore something in his hand, which to Ardmore's straining vision seemed to be a small wicker basket.