The horses trotted down the long green slope to where a herd of cows was standing belly deep in a gentle creek. Ahead of Adam now was a long stretch of valuable bottomland, well watered, lush, studded with stands of trees and cut by a tangle of small streams. Doubtless the land had once been all swamp, but generations of hard work had drained the wetland, tamed it, and made it useful, and Adam, looking at the results of that honest labor, was almost overcome by love for his country. That love was real for Adam, real enough to have driven him from his native Virginia to fight for the greater entity of the United States. Other countries might boast grander ceremonies than America, they might boast mighty castles, and possess splendid cathedrals and vast-halled palaces, but nowhere, Adam fervently believed, displayed the virtue of modest, hard, honest labor like America. This was a plain man’s country and Adam wanted it to be nothing more, for nothing, he believed, was worth more than simple, painstaking achievement.

“Daydreaming, Faulconer?” Thorne growled, and Adam jerked his head up to see that three horsemen had appeared from a stand of timber a mile ahead. Three horsemen in gray. “Our friends have their cavalry scouts afield, I see,” the Colonel said dryly, curbing his horse, “so it seems we won’t be eating in Damascus after all.” He took out his field glasses and inspected the rebel trio. “Down at heels, that’s for sure, but I’ll warrant their carbines are well looked after.” He edged the glasses up to stare at the ridge on which Damascus stood. He was wondering if he was wrong and that Lee was advancing on Washington, in which case he expected to see some evidence of gun batteries on the high ground, but he saw nothing. “It’s just a patrol,” he said dismissively, “nothing more. Lee’s not headed this way.” He turned his horse. “No point in being captured, Faulconer, let’s retire.”

But Adam had kicked his horse forward. The Colonel turned back. “Faulconer!” he snapped, but Adam ignored Thorne. Instead he kicked his heels again and the mare tossed her head and lifted her hooves as she began to canter.

The three rebels unslung their carbines, but did not take aim on the lone horseman who rode toward them. The Northerner did not have a saber drawn, nor was he holding any weapon, he was simply riding in a straight line toward his enemies. For a few seconds Thorne wondered if Faulconer was defecting back to the south, then the young man swerved his horse, leapt a brook, and cantered at an angle to the rebel scouts, who suddenly understood his purpose. They whooped like hunters seeing the fox in open ground and kicked back their heels. It was a race, pure and simple. Adam was challenging them, and the three rebels accepted the challenge by racing to catch him. It was a country game as old as time, only this day the prize was survival and the penalty imprisonment. Adam held his horse back, watching over his shoulder as the three pursuing horses lurched into the full gallop. He teased them by continuing to curb his good mare, and only when the closest man was within thirty or forty paces did he let go the curb rein and so give the mare her head.