A Story of the Great Western Campaign / Altsheler, Joseph A. (Joseph Alexander), 1862-1919

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Title: The Guns of Shiloh

Author: Joseph A. Altsheler

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THE GUNS OF SHILOH
A STORY OF THE GREAT WESTERN CAMPAIGN

by JOSEPH A. ALTSHELER




FOREWORD


"The Guns of Shiloh," a complete story in itself, is the complement of
"The Guns of Bull Run."  In "The Guns of Bull Run" the Civil War and
its beginnings are seen through the eyes of Harry Kenton, who is on the
Southern side.  In "The Guns of Shiloh" the mighty struggle takes its
color from the view of Dick Mason, who fights for the North and who is
with Grant in his first great campaign.




THE CIVIL WAR SERIES


 VOLUMES IN THE CIVIL WAR SERIES

  THE GUNS OF BULL RUN.
  THE GUNS OF SHILOH.
  THE SCOUTS OF STONEWALL.
  THE SWORD OF ANTIETAM.
  THE STAR OF GETTYSBURG.
  THE ROCK OF CHICKAMAUGA.
  THE SHADES OF THE WILDERNESS.
  THE TREE OF APPOMATTOX.


 PRINCIPAL CHARACTERS IN THE CIVIL WAR SERIES

  HARRY KENTON, A Lad Who Fights on the Southern Side.
  DICK MASON, Cousin of Harry Kenton, Who Fights on the Northern Side.
  COLONEL GEORGE KENTON, Father of Harry Kenton.
  MRS. MASON, Mother of Dick Mason.
  JULIANA, Mrs. Mason's Devoted Colored Servant.
  COLONEL ARTHUR WINCHESTER, Dick Mason's Regimental Commander.
  COLONEL LEONIDAS TALBOT, Commander of the Invincibles,
   a Southern Regiment.
  LIEUTENANT COLONEL HECTOR ST. HILAIRE, Second in Command of the
   Invincibles.
  ALAN HERTFORD, A Northern Cavalry Leader.
  PHILIP SHERBURNE, A Southern Cavalry Leader.
  WILLIAM J. SHEPARD, A Northern Spy.
  DANIEL WHITLEY, A Northern Sergeant and Veteran of the Plains.
  GEORGE WARNER, A Vermont Youth Who Loves Mathematics.
  FRANK PENNINGTON, A Nebraska Youth, Friend of Dick Mason.
  ARTHUR ST. CLAIR, A Native of Charleston, Friend of Harry Kenton.
  TOM LANGDON, Friend of Harry Kenton.
  GEORGE DALTON, Friend of Harry Kenton.
  BILL SKELLY, Mountaineer and Guerrilla.
  TOM SLADE, A Guerrilla Chief.
  SAM JARVIS, The Singing Mountaineer.
  IKE SIMMONS, Jarvis' Nephew.
  AUNT "SUSE," A Centenarian and Prophetess.
  BILL PETTY, A Mountaineer and Guide.
  JULIEN DE LANGEAIS, A Musician and Soldier from Louisiana.
  JOHN CARRINGTON, Famous Northern Artillery Officer.
  DR. RUSSELL, Principal of the Pendleton School.
  ARTHUR TRAVERS, A Lawyer.
  JAMES BERTRAND, A Messenger from the South.
  JOHN NEWCOMB, A Pennsylvania Colonel.
  JOHN MARKHAM, A Northern Officer.
  JOHN WATSON, A Northern Contractor.
  WILLIAM CURTIS, A Southern Merchant and Blockade Runner.
  MRS. CURTIS, Wife of William Curtis.
  HENRIETTA GARDEN, A Seamstress in Richmond.
  DICK JONES, A North Carolina Mountaineer.
  VICTOR WOODVILLE, A Young Mississippi Officer.
  JOHN WOODVILLE, Father of Victor Woodville.
  CHARLES WOODVILLE, Uncle of Victor Woodville.
  COLONEL BEDFORD, A Northern Officer.
  CHARLES GORDON, A Southern Staff Officer.
  JOHN LANHAM, An Editor.
  JUDGE KENDRICK, A Lawyer.
  MR. CULVER, A State Senator.
  MR. BRACKEN, A Tobacco Grower.
  ARTHUR WHITRIDGE, A State Senator.


 HISTORICAL CHARACTERS

  ABRAHAM LINCOLN, President of the United States.
  JEFFERSON DAVIS, President of the Southern Confederacy.
  JUDAH P. BENJAMIN, Member of the Confederate Cabinet.
  U. S. GRANT, Northern Commander.
  ROBERT B. LEE, Southern Commander.
  STONEWALL JACKSON, Southern General.
  PHILIP H. SHERIDAN, Northern General.
  GEORGE H. THOMAS, "The Rock of Chickamauga."
  ALBERT SIDNEY JOHNSTON, Southern General.
  A. P. HILL, Southern General.
  W. S. HANCOCK, Northern General.
  GEORGE B. McCLELLAN, Northern General.
  AMBROSE B. BURNSIDE, Northern General.
  TURNER ASHBY, Southern Cavalry Leader.
  J. E. B. STUART, Southern Cavalry Leader.
  JOSEPH HOOKER, Northern General.
  RICHARD S. EWELL, Southern General.
  JUBAL EARLY, Southern General.
  WILLIAM S. ROSECRANS, Northern General.
  SIMON BOLIVAR BUCKNER, Southern General.
  LEONIDAS POLK, Southern General and Bishop.
  BRAXTON BRAGG, Southern General.
  NATHAN BEDFORD FORREST, Southern Cavalry Leader.
  JOHN MORGAN, Southern Cavalry Leader.
  GEORGE J. MEADE, Northern General.
  DON CARLOS BUELL, Northern General.
  W. T. SHERMAN, Northern General.
  JAMES LONGSTREET, Southern General.
  P. G. T. BEAUREGARD, Southern General.
  WILLIAM L. YANCEY, Alabama Orator.
  JAMES A. GARFIELD, Northern General, afterwards President of
   the United States.

  And many others


 IMPORTANT BATTLES DESCRIBED IN THE CIVIL WAR SERIES

  BULL RUN
  KERNSTOWN
  CROSS KEYS
  WINCHESTER
  PORT REPUBLIC
  THE SEVEN DAYS
  MILL SPRING
  FORT DONELSON
  SHILOH
  PERRYVILLE
  STONE RIVER
  THE SECOND MANASSAS
  ANTIETAM
  FREDERICKSBURG
  CHANCELLORSVILLE
  GETTYSBURG
  CHAMPION HILL
  VICKSBURG
  CHICKAMAUGA
  MISSIONARY RIDGE
  THE WILDERNESS
  SPOTTSYLVANIA
  COLD HARBOR
  FISHER'S HILL
  CEDAR CREEK
  APPOMATTOX



CONTENTS

    I.    IN FLIGHT

   II.    THE MOUNTAIN LIGHTS

  III.    THE TELEGRAPH STATION

   IV.    THE FIGHT IN THE PASS

    V.    THE SINGER OF THE HILLS

   VI.    MILL SPRING

  VII.    THE MESSENGER

 VIII.    A MEETING AT NIGHT

   IX.    TAKING A FORT

    X.    BEFORE DONELSON

   XI.    THE SOUTHERN ATTACK

  XII.    GRANT'S GREAT VICTORY

 XIII.    IN THE FOREST

  XIV.    THE DARK EVE OF SHILOH

   XV.    THE RED DAWN OF SHILOH

  XVI.    THE FIERCE FINISH OF SHILOH




THE GUNS OF SHILOH

CHAPTER I

IN FLIGHT


Dick Mason, caught in the press of a beaten army, fell back slowly with
his comrades toward a ford of Bull Run.  The first great battle of
the Civil War had been fought and lost.  Lost, after it had been won!
Young as he was Dick knew that fortune had been with the North until the
very closing hour.  He did not yet know how it had been done.  He did
not know how the Northern charges had broken in vain on the ranks of
Stonewall Jackson's men.  He did not know how the fresh Southern troops
from the Valley of Virginia had hurled themselves so fiercely on the
Union flank.  But he did know that his army had been defeated and was
retreating on the capital.

Cannon still thundered to right and left, and now and then showers of
bursting shell sprayed over the heads of the tired and gloomy soldiers.
Dick, thoughtful and scholarly, was in the depths of a bitterness and
despair reached by few of those around him.  The Union, the Republic,
had appealed to him as the most glorious of experiments.  He could not
bear to see it broken up for any cause whatever.  It had been founded
with too much blood and suffering and labor to be dissolved in a day on
a Virginia battlefield.

But the army that had almost grasped victory was retreating, and the
camp followers, the spectators who had come out to see an easy triumph,
and some of the raw recruits were running.  A youth near Dick cried that
the rebels fifty thousand strong with a hundred guns were hot upon their
heels.  A short, powerful man, with a voice like the roar of thunder,
bade him hush or he would feel a rifle barrel across his back.  Dick
had noticed this man, a sergeant named Whitley, who had shown singular
courage and coolness throughout the battle, and he crowded closer to him
for companionship.  The man observed the action and looked at him with
blue eyes that twinkled out of a face almost black with the sun.

"Don't take it so hard, my boy," he said.  "This battle's lost, but
there are others that won't be.  Most of the men were raw, but they
did some mighty good fightin', while the regulars an' the cavalry are
coverin' the retreat.  Beauregard's army is not goin' to sweep us off
the face of the earth."

His words brought cheer to Dick, but it lasted only a moment.  He was
to see many dark days, but this perhaps was the darkest of his life.
His heart beat painfully and his face was a brown mask of mingled dust,
sweat, and burned gunpowder.  The thunder of the Southern cannon behind
them filled him with humiliation.  Every bone in him ached after such
fierce exertion, and his eyes were dim with the flare of cannon and
rifles and the rolling clouds of dust.  He was scarcely conscious that
the thick and powerful sergeant had moved up by his side and had put a
helping hand under his arm.

"Here we are at the ford!" cried Whitley.  "Into it, my lad!  Ah,
how good the water feels!"

Dick, despite those warning guns behind him, would have remained a while
in Bull Run, luxuriating in the stream, but the crowd of his comrades
was pressing hard upon him, and he only had time to thrust his face into
the water and to pour it over his neck, arms, and shoulders.  But he was
refreshed greatly.  Some of the heat went out of his body, and his eyes
and head ached less.

The retreat continued across the rolling hills.  Dick saw everywhere
arms and supplies thrown away by the fringe of a beaten army, the men
in the rear who saw and who spread the reports of panic and terror.
But the regiments were forming again into a cohesive force, and behind
them the regulars and cavalry in firm array still challenged pursuit.
Heavy firing was heard again under the horizon and word came that the
Southern cavalry had captured guns and wagons, but the main division
maintained its slow retreat toward Washington.

Now the cool shadows were coming.  The sun, which had shown as red as
blood over the field that day, was sinking behind the hills.  Its fiery
rays ceased to burn the faces of the men.  A soft healing breeze stirred
the leaves and grass.  The river of Bull Run and the field of Manassas
were gone from sight, and the echo of the last cannon shot died solemnly
on the Southern horizon.  An hour later the brigade stopped in the wood,
and the exhausted men threw themselves upon the ground.  They were so
tired that their bodies were in pain as if pricked with needles.
The chagrin and disgrace of defeat were forgotten for the time in the
overpowering desire for rest.

Dick had enlisted as a common soldier.  There was no burden of
maintaining order upon him, and he threw himself upon the ground by the
side of his new friend, Sergeant Whitley.  His breath came at first
in gasps, but presently he felt better and sat up.

It was now full night, thrice blessed to them all, with the heat and
dust gone and no enemy near.  The young recruits had recovered their
courage.  The terrible scenes of the battle were hid from their eyes,
and the cannon no longer menaced on the horizon.  The sweet, soothing
wind blew gently over the hills among which they lay, and the leaves
rustled peacefully.

Fires were lighted, wagons with supplies arrived, and the men began to
cook food, while the surgeons moved here and there, binding up the
wounds of the hurt.  The pleasant odors of coffee and frying meat arose.
Sergeant Whitley stood up and by the moonlight and the fires scanned the
country about them with discerning eye.  Dick looked at him with renewed
interest.  He was a man of middle years, but with all the strength and
elasticity of youth.  Despite his thick coat of tan he was naturally
fair, and Dick noticed that his hands were the largest that he had ever
seen on any human being.  They seemed to the boy to have in them the
power to strangle a bear.  But the man was singularly mild and gentle in
his manner.

"We're about half way to Washington, I judge," he said, "an' I expect a
lot of our camp followers and grass-green men are all the way there by
now, tellin' Abe Lincoln an' everybody else that a hundred thousand
rebels fell hard upon us on the plain of Manassas."

He laughed deep down in his throat and Dick again drew courage and
cheerfulness from one who had such a great store of both.

"How did it happen?  Our defeat, I mean," asked Dick.  "I thought almost
to the very last moment that we had the victory won."

"Their reserves came an' ours didn't.  But the boys did well.  Lots
worse than this will happen to us, an' we'll live to overcome it.
I've been through a heap of hardships in my life, Dick, but I always
remember that somebody else has been through worse.  Let's go down the
hill.  The boys have found a branch an' are washin' up."

By "branch" he meant a brook, and Dick went with him gladly.  They
found a fine, clear stream, several feet broad and a foot deep, flowing
swiftly between the slopes, and probably emptying miles further on into
Bull Run.  Already it was lined by hundreds of soldiers, mostly boys,
who were bathing freely in its cool waters.  Dick and the sergeant
joined them and with the sparkle of the current fresh life and vigor
flowed into their veins.

An officer took command, and when they had bathed their faces, necks,
and arms abundantly they were allowed to take off their shoes and socks
and put their bruised and aching feet in the stream.

"It seems to me, sergeant, that this is pretty near to Heaven," said
Dick as he sat on the bank and let the water swish around his ankles.

"It's mighty good.  There's no denyin' it, but we'll move still a step
nearer to Heaven, when we get our share of that beef an' coffee, which I
now smell most appetizin'.  Hard work gives a fellow a ragin' appetite,
an' I reckon fightin' is the hardest of all work.  When I was a
lumberman in Wisconsin I thought nothin' could beat that, but I admit
now that a big battle is more exhaustin'."

"You've worked in the timber then?"

"From the time I was twelve years old 'til three or four years ago.
If I do say it myself, there wasn't a man in all Wisconsin, or Michigan
either, who could swing an axe harder or longer than I could.  I guess
you've noticed these hands of mine."

He held them up, and they impressed Dick more than ever.  They were
great masses of bone and muscle fit for a giant.

"Paws, the boys used to call 'em," resumed Whitley with a pleased laugh.
"I inherited big hands.  Father had em an' mother had 'em, too.  So mine
were wonders when I was a boy, an' when you add to that years an' years
with the axe, an' with liftin' an' rollin' big logs I've got what I
reckon is the strongest pair of hands in the United States.  I can pull
a horseshoe apart any time.  Mighty useful they are, too, as I'm likely
to show you often."

The chance came very soon.  A frightened horse, probably with the memory
of the battle still lodged somewhere in his animal brain, broke his
tether and came charging among the troops.  Whitley made one leap,
seized him by the bit in his mighty grasp and hurled him back on his
haunches, where he held him until fear was gone from him.

"It was partly strength and partly sleight of hand, a trick that I
learned in the cavalry," he said to Dick as they put on their shoes.
"I got tired of lumberin' an' I wandered out west, where I served three
years on horseback in the regular army, fightin' the Indians.  Good
fighters they are, too.  Mighty hard to put your hand on 'em.  Now
they're there an' now they ain't.  Now you see 'em before you, an' then
they're behind you aimin' a tomahawk at your head.  They taught us a big
lot that I guess we can use in this war.  Come on, Dick, I guess them
banquet halls are spread, an' I know we're ready."

Not much order was preserved in the beaten brigade, which had become
separated from the rest of the retreating army, but the spirits of all
were rising and that, so Sergeant Whitley told Dick, was better just now
than technical discipline.  The Northern army had gone to Bull Run with
ample supplies, and now they lacked for nothing.  They ate long and well,
and drank great quantities of coffee.  Then they put out the fires and
resumed the march toward Washington.

They stopped again an hour or two after midnight and slept until
morning.  Dick lay on the bare ground under the boughs of a great oak
tree.  It was a quarter of an hour before sleep came, because his
nervous system had received a tremendous wrench that day.  He closed
his eyes and the battle passed again before them.  He remembered, too,
a lightning glimpse of a face, that of his cousin, Harry Kenton, seen
but an instant and then gone.  He tried to decide whether it was fancy
or reality, and, while he was trying, he fell asleep and slept as one
dead.

Dick was awakened early in the morning by Sergeant Whitley, who was now
watching over him like an elder brother.  The sun already rode high and
there was a great stir and movement, as the brigade was forming for its
continued retreat on the capital.  The boy's body was at first stiff
and sore, but the elasticity of youth returned fast, and after a brief
breakfast he was fully restored.

Another hot day had dawned, but Dick reflected grimly that however hot
it might be it could not be as hot as the day before had been.  Scouts
in the night had brought back reports that the Southern troops were on
the northern side of Bull Run, but not in great force, and a second
battle was no longer feared.  The flight could be continued without
interruption over the hot Virginia fields.

Much of Dick's depression returned as they advanced under the blazing
sun, but Whitley, who seemed insensible to either fatigue or gloom,
soon cheered him up again.

"They talk about the Southerners comin' on an' takin' Washington,"
he said, "but don't you believe it.  They haven't got the forces,
an' while they won the victory I guess they're about as tired as we are.
Our boys talk about a hundred thousand rebels jumpin' on 'em, an' some
felt as if they was a million, but they weren't any more than we was,
maybe not as many, an' when they are all stove up themselves how can
they attack Washington in its fortifications!  Don't be so troubled,
boy.  The Union ain't smashed up yet.  Just recollect whenever it's dark
that light's bound to come later on.  What do you say to that, Long
Legs?"

He spoke to a very tall and very thin youth who marched about a half
dozen feet away from them.  The boy, who seemed to be about eighteen
years of age, turned to them a face which was pale despite the Virginia
sun.  But it was the pallor of indoor life, not of fear, as the
countenance was good and strong, long, narrow, the chin pointed, the
nose large and bridged like that of an old Roman, the eyes full blue
and slightly nearsighted.  But there was a faint twinkle in those same
nearsighted eyes as he replied in precise tones:

"According to all the experience of centuries and all the mathematical
formulae that can be deduced therefrom night is bound to be followed
by day.  We have been whipped by the rebels, but it follows with
arithmetical certainty that if we keep on fighting long enough we will
whip them in time.  Let x equal time and y equal opportunity.  Then when
x and y come together we shall have x plus y which will equal success.
Does my logic seem cogent to you, Mr. Big Shoulders and Big Hands?"

Whitley stared at him in amazement and admiration.

"I haven't heard so many big words in a long time," he said, "an' then,
too, you bring 'em out so nice an' smooth, marchin' in place as regular
as a drilled troop."

"I've been drilled too," said the tall boy, smiling.  "My name is George
Warner, and I come from Vermont.  I began teaching a district school
when I was sixteen years old, and I would be teaching now, if it were
not for the war.  My specialty is mathematics.  X equals the war,
y equals me and x plus y equals me in the war."

"Your name is Warner and you are from Vermont," said Dick eagerly.
"Why, there was a Warner who struck hard for independence at Bennington
in the Revolution."

"That's my family," replied the youth proudly.  "Seth Warner delivered
a mighty blow that helped to form this Union, and although I don't know
much except to teach school I'm going to put in a little one to help
save it.  X equalled the occasion, y equalled my willingness to meet it,
and x plus y have brought me here."

Dick told who he and Whitley were, and he felt at once that he and this
long and mathematical Vermont lad were going to be friends.  Whitley
also continued to look upon Warner with much favor.

"I respect anybody who can talk in mathematics as you do," he said.
"Now with me I never know what x equals an' I never know what y equals,
so if I was to get x an' y together they might land me about ten
thousand miles from where I wanted to be.  But a fellow can bend too
much over books.  That's what's the matter with them eyes of yours,
which I notice always have to take two looks where I take only one."

"You are undoubtedly right," replied Warner.  "My relatives told me that
I needed some fresh air, and I am taking it, although the process is
attended with certain risks from bullets, swords, bayonets, cannon balls,
and shells.  Still, I have made a very close mathematical calculation.
At home there is the chance of disease as well as here.  At home you may
fall from a cliff, you may be drowned in a creek or river while bathing,
a tree may fall on you, a horse may throw you and break your neck,
or you may be caught in a winter storm and freeze to death.  But even
if none of these things happens to you, you will die some day anyhow.
Now, my figures show me that the chance of death here in the war is only
twenty-five per cent greater than it was at home, but physical activity
and an open air continuously increase my life chances thirty-five per
cent.  So, I make a net life gain of ten per cent."

Whitley put his hand upon Warner's shoulder.

"Boy," he said, "you're wonderful.  I can cheer up the lads by talkin'
of the good things to come, but you can prove by arithmetic, algebra an'
every other kind of mathematics that they're bound to come.  You're
goin' to be worth a lot wherever you are."

"Thanks for your enconiums.  In any event we are gaining valuable
experience.  Back there on the field of Bull Run I was able to
demonstrate by my own hearing and imagination that a hundred thousand
rebels could fire a million bullets a minute; that every one of those
million bullets filled with a mortal spite against me was seeking my
own particular person."

Whitley gazed at him again with admiration.

"You've certainly got a wonderful fine big bag of words," he said,
"an' whenever you need any you just reach in an' take out a few a foot
long or so.  But I reckon a lot of others felt the way you did, though
they won't admit it now.  Look, we're nearly to Washington now.  See the
dome of the Capitol over the trees there, an' I can catch glimpses of
roofs too."

Dick and George also saw the capital, and cheered by the sight, they
marched at a swifter gait.  Soon they turned into the main road, where
the bulk of the army had already passed and saw swarms of stragglers
ahead of them.  Journalists and public men met them, and Dick now
learned how the truth about Bull Run had come to the capital.  The
news of defeat had been the more bitter, because already they had been
rejoicing there over success.  As late as five o'clock in the afternoon
the telegraph had informed Washington of victory.  Then, after a long
wait, had come the bitter despatch telling of defeat, and flying
fugitives arriving in the night had exaggerated it tenfold.

The division to which Dick, Warner, and Whitley belonged marched over
the Long Bridge and camped near the capital where they would remain
until sent on further service.  Dick now saw that the capital was in no
danger.  Troops were pouring into it by every train from the north and
west.  All they needed was leadership and discipline.  Bull Run had
stung, but it did not daunt them and they asked to be led again against
the enemy.  They heard that Lincoln had received the news of the defeat
with great calmness, and that he had spent most of a night in his office
listening to the personal narratives of public men who had gone forth
to see the battle, and who at its conclusion had left with great speed.

"Lots of people have laughed at Abe Lincoln an' have called him only
a rail-splitter," said Whitley, "but I heard him two or three times,
when he was campaignin' in Illinois, an' I tell you he's a man."

"He was born in my state," said Dick, "and I mean to be proud of him.
He'll have support, too.  Look how the country is standing by him!"

More than once in the succeeding days Dick Mason's heart thrilled at
the mighty response that came to the defeat of Bull Run.  The stream of
recruits pouring into the capital never ceased.  He now saw men, and
many boys, too, like himself, from every state north of the Ohio River
and from some south of it.  Dan Whitley met old logging friends from
Wisconsin whom he had not seen in years, and George Warner saw two
pupils of his as old as himself.

Dick had inherited a sensitive temperament, one that responded quickly
and truthfully to the events occurring about him, and he foresaw the
beginning of a mighty struggle.  Here in the capital, resolution was
hardening into a fight to the finish, and he knew from his relatives
when he left Kentucky that the South was equally determined.  There was
an apparent pause in hostilities, but he felt that the two sections were
merely gathering their forces for a mightier conflict.

His comrades and he had little to do, and they had frequent leaves of
absence.  On one of them they saw a man of imposing appearance pass down
Pennsylvania Avenue.  He would have caught the attention of anybody,
owing to his great height and splendid head crowned with snow-white
hair.  He was old, but he walked as if he were one who had achieved
greatly, and was conscious of it.

"It's Old Fuss and Feathers his very self," said Whitley.

"General Scott.  It can be no other," said Dick, who had divined at once
the man's identity.  His eyes followed the retreating figure with the
greatest interest.  This was the young hero of the War of 1812 and the
great commander who had carried the brilliant campaign into the capital
of Mexico.  He had been the first commander-in-chief of the Northern
army, and, foreseeing the great scale of the coming war, had prepared
a wide and cautious plan.  But the public had sneered at him and had
demanded instant action, the defeat at Bull Run being the result.

Dick felt pity for the man who was forced to bear a blame not his own,
and who was too old for another chance.  But he knew that the present
cloud would soon pass away, and that he would be remembered as the man
of Chippewa and Chapultepec.

"McClellan is already here to take his place," said Whitley.  "He's
the young fellow who has been winning successes in the western part of
Virginia, an' they say he has genius."

Only a day or two later they saw McClellan walking down the same avenue
with the President.  Dick had never beheld a more striking contrast.
The President was elderly, of great height, his head surmounted by a
high silk hat which made him look yet taller, while his face was long,
melancholy, and wrinkled deeply.  His collar had wilted with the heat
and the tails of his long black coat flapped about his legs.

The general was clothed in a brilliant uniform.  He was short and stocky
and his head scarcely passed the President's shoulder.  He was redolent
of youth and self confidence.  It showed in his quick, eager gestures
and his emphatic manner.  He attracted the two boys, but the sergeant
shook his head somewhat solemnly.

"They say Scott was too old," he said, "and now they've gone to the
other end of it.  McClellan's too young to handle the great armies that
are going into the field.  I'm afraid he won't be a match for them old
veterans like Johnston and Lee."

"Napoleon became famous all over the world when he was only twenty-six,"
said Warner.

"That's so," retorted Whitley, "but I never heard of any other Napoleon.
The breed began and quit with him."

But the soldiers crowding the capital had full confidence in "Little
Mac," as they had already begun to call him.  Those off duty followed
and cheered him and the President, until they entered the White House
and disappeared within its doors.  Dick and his friends were in the
crowd that followed, although they did not join in the cheers, not
because they lacked faith, but because all three were thoughtful.
Dick had soon discovered that Whitley, despite his lack of education,
was an exceedingly observant man, with a clear and reasoning mind.

"It was a pair worth seeing," said the sergeant, as they turned away,
"but I looked a lot more at Old Abe than I did at "Little Mac."  Did you
ever think, boys, what it is to have a big war on your hands, with all
sorts of men tellin' you all sorts of things an' tryin' to pull you in
all sorts of directions?"

"I had not thought of it before, but I will think of it now," said
Warner.  "In any event, we are quite sure that the President has a great
task before him.  We hear that the South will soon have a quarter of a
million troops in the field.  Her position on the defensive is perhaps
worth as many more men to her.  Hence let x equal her troops, let y
equal her defensive, and we have x plus y, which is equal to half a
million men, the number we must have before we can meet the South on
equal terms."

"An' to conquer her completely we'll need nigh on to a million." said
the sergeant.

Shrewd and penetrating as was Sergeant Whitley he did not dream that
before the giant struggle was over the South would have tripled her
defensive quarter of a million and the North would almost have tripled
her invading million.

A few days later their regiment marched out of the capital and joined
the forces on the hills around Arlington, where they lay for many days,
impatient but inactive.  There was much movement in the west, and they
heard of small battles in which victory and defeat were about equal.
The boys had shown so much zeal and ability in learning soldierly duties
that they were made orderlies by their colonel, John Newcomb, a taciturn
Pennsylvanian, a rich miner who had raised a regiment partly at his
own expense, and who showed a great zeal for the Union.  He, too, was
learning how to be a soldier and he was not above asking advice now and
then of a certain Sergeant Whitley who had the judgment to give it in
the manner befitting one of his lowly rank.

The summer days passed slowly on.  The heat was intense.  The Virginia
hills and plains fairly shimmered under the burning rays of the sun.
But still they delayed.  Congress had shown the greatest courage,
meeting on the very day that the news of Bull Run had come, and
resolving to fight the war to a successful end, no matter what happened.
But while McClellan was drilling and preparing, the public again began
to call for action.  "On to Richmond!" was the cry, but despite it the
army did not yet move.

European newspapers came in, and almost without exception they sneered
at the Northern troops, and predicted the early dissolution of the
Union.  Monarchy and privileged classes everywhere rejoiced at the
disaster threatening the great republic, and now that it was safe to do
so, did not hesitate to show their delight.  Sensitive and proud of his
country, Dick was cut to the quick, but Warner was more phlegmatic.

"Let 'em bark," he said.  "They bark because they dislike us, and they
dislike us because they fear us.  We threatened Privilege when our
Revolution succeeded and the Republic was established.  The fact of our
existence was the threat and the threat has increased with our years and
growth.  Europe is for the South, but the reason for it is one of the
simplest problems in mathematics.  Ten per cent of it is admiration
for the Southern victory at Bull Run, and ninety per cent of it is
hatred--at least by their ruling classes--of republican institutions,
and a wish to see them fall here."

"I suspect you're right," said Dick, "and we'll have to try all the
harder to keep them from being a failure.  Look, there goes our balloon!"

Every day, usually late in the afternoon, a captive balloon rose from
the Northern camp, and officers with powerful glasses inspected the
Southern position, watching for an advance or a new movement of any kind.

"I'm going up in it some day," said Dick, confidently.  "Colonel Newcomb
has promised me that he will take me with him when his turn for the
ascension comes."

The chance was a week in coming, a tremendously long time it seemed to
Dick, but it came at last.  He climbed into the basket with Colonel
Newcomb, two generals, and the aeronauts and sat very quiet in a corner.
He felt an extraordinary thrill when the ropes were allowed to slide and
the balloon was slowly going almost straight upward.  The sensation was
somewhat similar to that which shook him when he went into battle at
Bull Run, but pride came to his rescue and he soon forgot the physical
tremor to watch the world that now rolled beneath them, a world that
they seemed to have left, although the ropes always held.

Dick's gaze instinctively turned southward, where he knew the
Confederate army lay.  A vast and beautiful panorama spread in a
semi-circle before him.  The green of summer, the green that had been
stained so fearfully at Bull Run, was gone.  The grass was now brown
from the great heats and the promise of autumn soon to come, but--from
the height at least--it was a soft and mellow brown, and the dust was
gone.

The hills rolled far away southward, and under the horizon's rim.
Narrow ribbons of silver here and there were the numerous brooks and
creeks that cut the country.  Groves, still heavy and dark with foliage,
hung on the hills, or filled some valley, like green in a bowl.  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.  In the south he saw a long curving
line of rising blue plumes.  It did not need Colonel Newcomb to tell him
that these were the campfires of the army that they had met on the field
of Bull Run, and that the Southern troops were now cooking their suppers.

No doubt his cousin Harry was there and perhaps others whom he knew.
The fires seemed to Dick a defiance to the Union.  Well, in view of
their victory, the defiance was justified, and those fires might come
nearer yet.  Dick, catching the tone of older men who shared his views,
had not believed at first that the rebellion would last long, but his
opinion was changing fast, and the talk of wise Sergeant Whitley was
helping much in that change.

While he yet looked through the glasses he saw a plume of white smoke
coming swiftly towards the Southern fires.  Then he remembered the two
lines of railroad that met on the battlefield, giving it its other name,
Manassas Junction, and he knew that the smoke came from an engine
pulling cars loaded with supplies for their foes.

He whispered of the train as he handed the glasses back to Colonel
Newcomb, and then the colonel and the generals alike made a long
examination.

"Beauregard will certainly have an abundance of supplies," said one of
the generals.  "I hear that arms and provisions are coming by every
train from the South, and meanwhile we are making no advance."

"We can't advance yet," said the other general emphatically.  "McClellan
is right in making elaborate preparations and long drills before moving
upon the enemy.  It was inexperience, and not want of courage, that beat
us at Bull Run."

"The Southerners had the same inexperience."

"But they had the defensive.  I hear that Tom Jackson saved them,
and that they have given him the name Stonewall, because he stood so
firm.  I was at West Point with him.  An odd, awkward fellow, but one of
the hardest students I have ever known.  The boys laughed at him when
he first came, but they soon stopped.  He had a funny way of studying,
standing up with his book on a shelf, instead of sitting down at a desk.
Said his brain moved better that way.  I've heard that he walked part of
the way from Virginia to reach West Point.  I hear now, too, that he is
very religious, and always intends to pray before going into battle."

"That's a bad sign--for us," said the other general.  "It's easy enough
to sneer at praying men, but just you remember Cromwell.  I'm a little
shaky on my history, but I've an impression that when Cromwell, the
Ironsides, old Praise-God-Barebones, and the rest knelt, said a few
words to their God, sang a little and advanced with their pikes, they
went wherever they intended to go and that Prince Rupert and all the
Cavaliers could not stop them."

"It is so," said the other gravely.  "A man who believes thoroughly in
his God, who is not afraid to die, who, in fact, rather favors dying on
the field, is an awful foe to meet in battle."

"We may have some of the same on our side," said Colonel Newcomb.
"We have at least a great Puritan population from which to draw."

One of the generals gave the signal and the balloon was slowly pulled
down.  Dick, grateful for his experience, thanked Colonel Newcomb and
rejoined his comrades.




CHAPTER II

THE MOUNTAIN LIGHTS


When Dick left the balloon it was nearly night.  Hundreds of campfires
lighted up the hills about him, but beyond their circle the darkness
enclosed everything.  He still felt the sensations of one who had been
at a great height and who had seen afar.  That rim of Southern campfires
was yet in his mind, and he wondered why the Northern commander allowed
them to remain week after week so near the capital.  He was fully aware,
because it was common talk, that the army of the Union had now reached
great numbers, with a magnificent equipment, and, with four to one,
should be able to drive the Southern force away.  Yet McClellan delayed.

Dick obtained a short leave of absence, and walked to a campfire,
where he knew he would find his friend, George Warner.  Sergeant Whitley
was there, too, showing some young recruits how to cook without waste,
and the two gave the boy a welcome that was both inquisitive and hearty.

"You've been up in the balloon," said Warner.  "It was a rare chance."

"Yes," replied Dick with a laugh, "I left the world, and it is the only
way in which I wish to leave it for the next sixty or seventy years.
It was a wonderful sight, George, and not the least wonderful thing in
it was the campfires of the Southern army, burning down there towards
Bull Run."

"Burnin' where they ought not to be," said Whitley--no gulf was yet
established between commissioned and non-commissioned officers in either
army.  "Little Mac may be a great organizer, as they say, but you can
keep on organizin' an' organizin', until it's too late to do what you
want to do."

"It's a sound principle that you lay down, Mr. Whitley," said Warner
in his precise tones.  "In fact, it may be reduced to a mathematical
formula.  Delay is always a minus quantity which may be represented by
y.  Achievement is represented by x, and, consequently, when you have
achievement hampered by delay you have x minus y, which is an extremely
doubtful quantity, often amounting to failure."

"I travel another road in my reckonin's," said Whitley, "I don't know
anything about x and y, but I guess you an' me, George, come to the same
place.  It's been a full six weeks since Bull Run, an' we haven't done a
thing."

Whitley, despite their difference in rank, could not yet keep from
addressing the boys by their first names.  But they took it as a matter
of course, in view of the fact that he was so much older than they and
vastly their superior in military knowledge.

"Dick," continued the sergeant, "what was it you was sayin' about a
cousin of yours from the same town in Kentucky bein' out there in the
Southern army?"

"He's certainly there," replied Dick, "if he wasn't killed in the battle,
which I feel couldn't have happened to a fellow like Harry.  We're from
the same little town in Kentucky, Pendleton.  He's descended straight
from one of the greatest Indian fighters, borderers and heroes the
country down there ever knew, Henry Ware, who afterwards became one of
the early governors of the State.  And I'm descended from Henry Ware's
famous friend, Paul Cotter, who, in his time, was the greatest scholar
in all the West.  Henry Ware and Paul Cotter were like the old Greek
friends, Damon and Pythias.  Harry and I are proud to have their blood
in our veins.  Besides being cousins, there are other things to make
Harry and me think a lot of each other.  Oh, he's a grand fellow,
even if he is on the wrong side!"

Dick's eyes sparkled with enthusiasm as he spoke of the cousin and
comrade of his childhood.

"The chances of war bring about strange situations, or at least I have
heard so," said Warner.  "Now, Dick, if you were to meet your cousin
face to face on the battlefield with a loaded gun in your hand what
would you do?"

"I'd raise that gun, take deliberate aim at a square foot of air about
thirty feet over his head and pull the trigger."

"But your duty to your country tells you to do otherwise.  Before you is
a foe trying to destroy the Union.  You have come out armed to save that
Union, consequently you must fire straight at him and not at the air,
in order to reduce the number of our enemies."

"One enemy where there are so many would not count for anything in the
total.  Your arithmetic will show you that Harry's percentage in the
Southern army is so small that it reaches the vanishing point.  If I can
borrow from you, George, x equals Harry's percentage, which is nothing,
y equals the value of my hypothetical opportunity, which is nothing,
then x plus y equals nothing, which represents the whole affair, which
is nothing, that is, worth nothing to the Union.  Hence I have no more
obligation to shoot Harry if I meet him than he has to shoot me."

"Well spoken, Dick," said Sergeant Whitley.  "Some people, I reckon,
can take duty too hard.  If you have one duty an' another an' bigger one
comes along right to the same place you ought to 'tend to the bigger
one.  I'd never shoot anybody that was a heap to me just because he
was one of three or four hundred thousand who was on the other side.
I've never thought much of that old Roman father--I forget his name--who
had his son executed just because he wasn't doin' exactly right.
There was never a rule that oughtn't to have exceptions under
extraordinary circumstances."

"If you can establish the principle of exceptions," replied the young
Vermonter very gravely, "I will allow Dick to shoot in the air when he
meets his cousin in the height of battle, but it is a difficult task to
establish it, and if it fails Dick, according to all rules of logic and
duty, must shoot straight at his cousin's heart."

The other two looked at Warner and saw his left eyelid droop slightly.
A faint twinkle appeared in either eye and then they laughed.

"I reckon that Dick shoots high in the air," said the sergeant.

Dick, after a pleasant hour with his friends, went back to Colonel
Newcomb's quarters, where he spent the entire evening writing despatches
at dictation.  He was hopeful that all this writing portended something,
but more days passed, and despite the impatience of both army and public,
there was no movement.  Stories of confused and uncertain fighting still
came out of the west, but between Washington and Bull Run there was
perfect peace.

The summer passed.  Autumn came and deepened.  The air was crisp and
sparkling.  The leaves, turned into glowing reds and yellows and browns,
began to fall from the trees.  The advancing autumn contained the
promise of winter soon to come.  The leaves fell faster and sharp winds
blew, bringing with them chill rains.  Little Mac, or the Young Napoleon,
as many of his friends loved to call him, continued his preparations,
and despite all the urgings of President and Congress, would not move.
His fatal defect now showed in all its destructiveness.  To him the
enemy always appeared threefold his natural size.

Reliable scouts brought back the news that the Southern troops at
Manassas, a full two months after their victory there, numbered only
forty thousand.  The Northern commander issued statements that the
enemy was before him with one hundred and fifty thousand soldiers.  He
demanded that his own forces should be raised to nearly a quarter of
a million men and nearly five hundred cannon before he could move.

The veteran, Scott, full of triumphs and honors, but feeling himself out
of place in his old age, went into retirement.  McClellan, now in sole
command, still lingered and delayed, while the South, making good use of
precious months, gathered all her forces to meet him or whomsoever came
against her.

Youth chafed most against the long waiting.  It seemed to Dick and his
mathematical Vermont friend that time was fairly wasting away under
their feet, and the wise sergeant agreed with them.

The weather had grown so cold now that they built fires for warmth as
well as cooking, and the two youths sat with Sergeant Whitley one cold
evening in late October before a big blaze.  Both were tanned deeply by
wind, sun and rain, and they had grown uncommonly hardy, but the wind
that night came out of the northwest, and it had such a sharp edge to
it that they were glad to draw their blankets over their backs and
shoulders.

Dick was re-reading a letter from his mother, a widow who lived on the
outskirts of Pendleton.  It had come that morning, and it was the only
one that had reached him since his departure from Kentucky.  But she had
received another that he had written to her directly after the Battle of
Bull Run.

She wrote of her gratitude because Providence had watched over him in
that dreadful conflict, all the more dreadful because it was friend
against friend, brother against brother.  The state, she said, was all
in confusion.  Everybody suspected everybody else.  The Southerners were
full of victory, the Northerners were hopeful of victory yet to come.
Colonel Kenton was with the Southern force under General Buckner,
gathered at Bowling Green in that state, but his son, her nephew Harry,
was still in the east with Beauregard.  She had heard that the troops
of the west and northwest were coming down the Ohio and Mississippi in
great numbers, and people expected hard fighting to occur very soon in
western and southern Kentucky.  It was all very dreadful, and a madness
seemed to have come over the land, but she hoped that Providence would
continue to watch over her dear son.

Warner and the sergeant knew that the letter was from Dick's mother,
but they had too much delicacy to ask him questions.  The boy folded the
sheets carefully and returned them to their place in the inside pocket
of his coat.  Then he looked for a while thoughtfully into the blaze and
the great bed of coals that had formed beneath.  As far as one could see
to right and left like fires burned, but the night remained dark with
promise of rain, and the chill wind out of the northwest increased in
vigor.  The words just read for the fifth time had sunk deep in his mind,
and he was feeling the call of the west.

"My mother writes," he said to his comrades, "that the Confederate
general, Buckner, whom I know, is gathering a large force around Bowling
Green in the southern part of our state, and that fighting is sure to
occur soon between that town and the Mississippi.  An officer named
Grant has come down from Illinois, and he is said to be pushing the
Union troops forward with a lot of vigor.  Sergeant, you are up on army
affairs.  Do you know this man Grant?"

Sergeant Whitley shook his head.

"Never heard of him," he replied.  "Like as not he's one of the officers
who resigned from the army after the Mexican War.  There was so little
to do then, and so little chance of promotion, that a lot of them quit
to go into business.  I suppose they'll all be coming back now."

"I want to go out there," said Dick.  "It's my country, and the
westerners at least are acting.  But look at our army here!  Bull Run
was fought the middle of summer.  Now it's nearly winter, and nothing
has been done.  We don't get out of sight of Washington.  If I can get
myself sent west I'm going."

"And I'm going with you," said Warner.

"Me, too," said the sergeant.

"I know that Colonel Newcomb's eyes are turning in that direction,"
continued Dick.  "He's a war-horse, he is, and he'd like to get into the
thick of it."

"You're his favorite aide," said the calculating young Vermonter.
"Can't you sow those western seeds in his mind and keep on sowing them?
The fact that you are from this western battle ground will give more
weight to what you say.  You do this, and I'll wager that within a week
the Colonel will induce the President to send the whole regiment to the
Mississippi."

"Can you reduce your prediction to a mathematical certainty?" asked Dick,
a twinkle appearing in his eye.

"No, I can't do that," replied Warner, with an answering twinkle,
"but you're the very fellow to influence Colonel Newcomb's mind.
I'm a mathematician and I work with facts, but you have the glowing
imagination that conduces to the creation of facts."

"Big words!  Grand words!" said the sergeant.

"Never let Colonel Newcomb forget the west," continued Warner, not
noticing the interruption.  "Keep it before him all the time.  Hint
that there can be no success along the Mississippi without him and his
regiment."

"I'll do what I can," promised Dick faithfully, and he did much.
Colonel Newcomb had already formed a strong attachment for this zealous
and valuable young aide, and he did not forget the words that Dick
said on every convenient occasion about the west.  He made urgent
representations that he and his regiment be sent to the relief of the
struggling Northern forces there, and he contrived also that these
petitions should reach the President.  One day the order came to go,
but not to St. Louis, where Halleck, now in command, was.  Instead they
were to enter the mountains of West Virginia and Kentucky, and help the
mountaineers who were loyal to the Union.  If they accomplished that
task with success, they were to proceed to the greater theatre in
Western Kentucky and Tennessee.  It was not all they wished, but they
thought it far better than remaining at Washington, where it seemed
that the army would remain indefinitely.

Colonel Newcomb, who was sitting in his tent bending over maps with his
staff, summoned Dick.

"You are a Kentuckian, my lad," he said, "and I thought you might know
something about this region into which we are going."

"Not much, sir," replied Dick.  "My home is much further west in a
country very different both in its own character and that of its people.
But I have been in the mountains two or three times, and I may be of
some help as a guide."

"I am sure you will do your best," said Colonel Newcomb.  "By the way,
that young Vermont friend of yours, Warner, is to be on my staff also,
and it is very likely that you and he will go on many errands together."

"Can't we take Sergeant Whitley with us sometimes?" asked Dick boldly.

"So you can," replied the colonel, laughing a little.  "I've noticed
that man, and I've a faint suspicion that he knows more about war than
any of us civilian officers."

"It's our task to learn as much as we can from these old regulars,"
said a Major Hertford, a man of much intelligence and good humor, who,
previous to the war, had been a lawyer in a small town.  Alan Hertford
was about twenty-five and of fine manner and appearance.

"Well spoken, Major Hertford," said the thoughtful miner, Colonel
Newcomb.  "Now, Dick, you can go, and remember that we are to start for
Washington early in the morning and take a train there for the north.
It will be the duty of Lieutenant Warner and yourself, as well as others,
to see that our men are ready to the last shoe for the journey."

Dick and Warner were so much elated that they worked all that night,
and they did not hesitate to go to Sergeant Whitley for advice or
instruction.  At the first spear of dawn the regiment marched away in
splendid order from Arlington to Washington, where the train that was
to bear them to new fields and unknown fortunes was ready.

It was a long train of many coaches, as the regiment numbered seven
hundred men, and it also carried with it four guns, mounted on trucks.
The coaches were all of primitive pattern.  The soldiers were to sleep
on the seats, and their arms and supplies were heaped in the aisles.
It was a cold, drizzling day of closing autumn, and the capital looked
sodden and gloomy.  Cameron, the Secretary of War, came to see them off
and to make the customary prediction concerning their valor and victory
to come.  But he was a cold man, and he was repellent to Dick, used to
more warmth of temperament.

Then, with a ringing of bells, a heave of the engine, a great puffing of
smoke, and a mighty rattling of wheels, the train drew out of Washington
and made its noisy way toward Baltimore.  Dick and Warner were on the
same seat.  It was only forty miles to Baltimore, but their slow train
would be perhaps three hours in arriving.  So they had ample opportunity
to see the country, which they examined with the curious eyes of youth.
But there was little to see.  The last leaves were falling from the
trees under the early winter rain.  Bare boughs and brown grass went
past their windows and the fields were deserted.  The landscape looked
chill and sullen.

Warner was less depressed than Dick.  He had an even temperament based
solidly upon mathematical calculations.  He knew that while it might
be raining today, the chances were several to one against its raining
tomorrow.

"I've good cause to remember Baltimore," he said.  "I was with the New
England troops when they had the fight there on the way down to the
capital.  Although we hold it, it's really a Southern city, Dick.
Most all the border cities are Southern in sympathy, and they're
swarming with people who will send to the Southern leaders news of every
movement we make.  I state, and moreover I assert it in the face of
all the world, that the knowledge of our departure from Washington
is already in Southern hands.  By close mathematical calculation the
chances are at least ninety-five per cent in favor of my statement."

"Very likely," said Dick, "and we'll have that sort of thing to face all
the time when we invade the South.  We've got to win this war, George,
by hard fighting, and then more hard fighting, and then more and more of
the same."

"Guess you're right.  Arithmetic shows at least one hundred per cent of
probability in favor of your suggestion."

Dick looked up and down the long coach packed with young troops.
Besides the commissioned officers and the sergeants, there was not one
in the coach who was twenty-five.  Most of them were nineteen or twenty,
and it was the same in the other coaches.  After the first depression
their spirits rose.  The temper of youth showed strongly.  They were
eager to see Baltimore, but the train stopped there only a few minutes,
and they were not allowed to leave the coaches.

Then the train turned towards the west.  The drizzle of rain had now
become a pour, and it drove so heavily that they could see but little
outside.  Food was served at noon and afterward many slept in the
cramped seats.  Dick, despite his stiff position, fell asleep too.
By the middle of the afternoon everybody in their coach was slumbering
soundly except Sergeant Whitley, who sat by the door leading to the
next car.

All that afternoon and into the night the train rattled and moved into
the west.  The beautiful rolling country was left behind, and they were
now among the mountains, whirling around precipices so sharply that
often the sleeping boys were thrown from the seats of the coaches.
But they were growing used to hardships.  They merely climbed back again
upon the seats, and were asleep once more in half a minute.

The rain still fell and the wind blew fiercely among the somber
mountains.  A second engine had been added to the train, and the speed
of the train was slackened.  The engineer in front stared at the
slippery rails, but he could see only a few yards.  The pitchy darkness
closed in ahead, hiding everything, even the peaks and ridges.  The
heart of that engineer, and he was a brave man, as brave as any soldier
on the battlefield, had sunk very low.  Railroads were little past their
infancy then and this was the first to cross the mountains.  He was by
no means certain of his track, and, moreover, the rocks and forest might
shelter an ambush.

The Alleghanies and their outlying ridges and spurs are not lofty
mountains, but to this day they are wild and almost inaccessible in many
places.  Nature has made them a formidable barrier, and in the great
Civil War those who trod there had to look with all their eyes and
listen with all their ears.  The engineer was not alone in his anxiety
this night.  Colonel Newcomb rose from an uneasy doze and he went with
Major Hertford into the engineer's cab.  They were now going at the rate
of not more than five or six miles an hour, the long train winding like
a snake around the edges of precipices and feeling its way gingerly over
the trestles that spanned the deep valleys.  All trains made a great
roar and rattle then, and the long ravines gave it back in a rumbling
and menacing echo.  Gusts of rain were swept now and then into the faces
of the engineer, the firemen and the officers.

"Do you see anything ahead, Canby?" said Colonel Newcomb to the engineer.

"Nothing.  That's the trouble, sir.  If it were a clear night I
shouldn't be worried.  Then we wouldn't be likely to steam into danger
with our eyes shut.  This is a wild country.  The mountaineers in the
main are for us, but we are not far north of the Southern line, and
if they know we are crossing they may undertake to raid in here."

"And they may know it," said the colonel.  "Washington is full of
Southern sympathizers.  Stop the train, Canby, when we come to the first
open and level space, and we'll do some scouting ahead."

The engineer felt great relief.  He was devoutly glad that the colonel
was going to take such a precaution.  At that moment he, more than
Colonel Newcomb, was responsible for the lives of the seven hundred
human beings aboard the train, and his patriotism and sense of
responsibility were both strong.

The train, with much jolting and clanging, stopped fifteen minutes
later.  Both Dick and Warner, awakened by the shock, sat up and rubbed
their eyes.  Then they left the train at once to join Colonel Newcomb,
who might want them immediately.  Wary Sergeant Whitley followed them
in silence.

The boys found Colonel Newcomb and the remaining members of his staff
standing near, and seeking anxiously to discover the nature of the
country about them.  The colonel nodded when they arrived, and gave them
an approving glance.  The two stood by, awaiting the colonel's orders,
but they did not neglect to use their eyes.

Dick saw by the engineer's lantern that they were in a valley, and he
learned from his words that this valley was about three miles long with
a width of perhaps half a mile.  A little mountain river rushed down its
center, and the train would cross the stream about a mile further on.
It was still raining and the cold wind whistled down from the mountains.
Dick could see the somber ridges showing dimly through the loom of
darkness and rain.  He was instantly aware, too, of a tense and uneasy
feeling among the officers.  All of them carried glasses, but in the
darkness they could not use them.  Lights began to appear in the train
and many heads were thrust out at the windows.

"Go through the coaches, Mr. Mason and Mr. Warner," said Colonel Newcomb,
"and have every light put out immediately.  Tell them, too, that my
orders are for absolute silence."

Dick and the Vermonter did their work rapidly, receiving many curious
inquiries, as they went from coach to coach, all of which they were
honestly unable to answer.  They knew no more than the other boys about
the situation.  But when they left the last coach and returned to the
officers near the engine, the train was in total darkness, and no
sound came from it.  Colonel Newcomb again gave them an approving nod.
Dick noticed that the fires in the engine were now well covered, and
that no sparks came from the smoke-stack.  Standing by it he could see
the long shape of the train running back in the darkness, but it would
have been invisible to any one a hundred yards away.

"You think we're thoroughly hidden now, Canby?" said the colonel.

"Yes, sir.  Unless they've located us precisely on advance information.
I don't see how they could find us among the mountains in all this
darkness and rain."

"But they've had the advance information!  Look there!" exclaimed Major
Hertford, pointing toward the high ridge that lay on their right.

A beam of light had appeared on the loftiest spur, standing out at
first like a red star in the darkness, then growing intensely brighter,
and burning with a steady, vivid light.  The effect was weird and
powerful.  The mountain beneath it was invisible, and it seemed to burn
there like a real eye, wrathful and menacing.  The older men, as well as
the boys, were held as if by a spell.  It was something monstrous and
eastern, like the appearance of a genie out of the Arabian Nights.

The light, after remaining fixed for at least a minute, began to move
slowly from side to side and then faster.

"A signal!" exclaimed Colonel Newcomb.  "Beyond a doubt it is the
Southerners.  Whatever they're saying they're saying it to somebody.
Look toward the south!"

"Ah, there they are answering!" exclaimed Major Hertford.

All had wheeled simultaneously, and on another high spur a mile to the
south a second red light as vivid and intense as the first was flashing
back and forth.  It, too, the mountain below invisible, seemed to swing
in the heavens.  Dick, standing there in the darkness and rain, and
knowing that imminent and mortal danger was on either side, felt a
frightful chill creeping slowly down his spine.  It is a terrible thing
to feel through some superior sense that an invisible foe is approaching,
and not be able to know by any kind of striving whence he came.

The lights flashed alternately, and presently both dropped from the sky,
seeming to Dick to leave blacker spots on the darkness in their place.
Then only the heavy night and the rain encompassed them.

"What do you think it is?" asked Colonel Newcomb of Major Hertford.

"Southern troops beyond a doubt.  It is equally certain that they were
warned in some manner from Washington of our departure."

"I think so, too.  It is probable that they saw the light and have been
signalling their knowledge to each other.  It seems likely to me that
they will wait at the far end of the valley to cut us off.  What force
do you think it is?"

"Perhaps a cavalry detachment that has ridden hurriedly to intercept us.
I would say at a guess that it is Turner Ashby and his men.  A skillful
and dangerous foe, as you know."

Already the fame of this daring Confederate horseman was spreading over
Virginia and Maryland.

"If we are right in our guess," said Major Hertford, "they will dismount,
lead their horses along the mountain side, and shut down the trap upon
us.  Doubtless they are in superior force, and know the country much
better than we do.  If they get ahead of us and have a little time to do
it in they will certainly tear up the tracks."

"I think you are right in all respects," said Colonel Newcomb.  "But it
is obvious that we must not give them time to destroy the road ahead of
us.  As for the rest, I wonder."

He pulled uneasily at his short beard, and then he caught sight of
Sergeant Whitley standing silently, arms folded, by the side of the
engine.  Newcomb, the miner colonel, was a man of big and open mind.
A successful business man, he had the qualities which made him a good
general by the time the war was in its third year.  He knew Whitley and
he knew, too, that he was an old army regular, bristling with experience
and shrewdness.

"Sergeant Whitley," he said, "in this emergency what would you do,
if you were in my place?"

The sergeant saluted respectfully.

"If I were in your place, sir, which I never will be," he replied,
"I would have all the troops leave the train.  Then I would have the
engineers take the train forward slowly, while the troops marched on
either side of it, but at a sufficient distance to be hidden in the
darkness.  Then, sir, our men could not be caught in a wreck, but with
their feet on solid earth they would be ready, if need be, for a fight,
which is our business."

"Well spoken, Sergeant Whitley," said Colonel Newcomb, while the other
officers also nodded approval.  "Your plan is excellent and we will
adopt it.  Get the troops out of the train quickly but in silence and
do you, Canby, be ready with the engine."

Dick and Warner with the older officers turned to the task.  The young
soldiers were out of the train in two minutes and were forming in lines
on either side, arms ready.  There were many whisperings among these
boys, but none loud enough to be heard twenty yards away.  All felt
intense relief when they left the train and stood upon the solid,
though decidedly damp earth.

But the cold rain sweeping upon their faces was a tonic, both mental and
physical, after the close heat of the train.  They did not know why they
had disembarked, but they surmised with good reason that an attack was
threatened and they were eager to meet it.

Dick and Warner were near the head of the line on the right of the
tracks, and Sergeant Whitley was with them.  The train began to puff
heavily, and in spite of every precaution some sparks flew from the
smoke-stack.  Dick knew that it was bound to rumble and rattle when it
started, but he was surprised at the enormous amount of noise it made,
when the wheels really began to turn.  It seemed to him that in the
silence of the night it could be heard three or four miles.  Then he
realized that it was merely his own excitement and extreme tension of
both mind and body.  Canby was taking the train forward so gently that
its sounds were drowned two hundred yards away in the swirl of wind and
rain.

The men marched, each line keeping abreast of the train, but fifty yards
or more to one side.  The young troops were forbidden to speak and their
footsteps made no noise in the wet grass and low bushes.  Dick and
Warner kept their eyes on the mountains, turning them alternately from
north to south.  Nothing appeared on either ridge, and no sound came to
tell of an enemy near.

Dick began to believe that they would pass through the valley and out of
the trap without a combat.  But while a train may go two or three miles
in a few minutes it takes troops marching in the darkness over uncertain
ground a long time to cover the same distance.  They marched a full half
hour and then Dick suppressed a cry.  The light, burning as intensely
red as before, appeared again on the mountain to the right, but further
toward the west, seeming to have moved parallel to the Northern troops.
As Dick looked it began to flash swiftly from side to side and that
chill and weird feeling again ran down his spine.  He looked toward the
south and there was the second signal, red and intense, replying to the
first.

Dick heard a deep "Ah!" run along the line of young troops, and he knew
now that they understood as much as he or any of the officers did.
He now knew, too, that they would not pass out of the valley without a
combat.  The Southern forces, beyond a doubt, would try to shut them in
at the western mouth of the valley, and a battle in the night and rain
was sure to follow.

The train continued to move slowly forward.  Had Colonel Newcomb dared
he would have ordered Canby to increase his speed in order that he might
reach the western mouth of the valley before the Southern force had a
chance to tear up the rails, but there was no use for the train without
the troops and they were already marching as fast as they could.

The gorge was now not more than a quarter of a mile away.  Dick was able
to discern it, because the darkness there was not quite so dark as that
which lay against the mountains on either side.  He was hopeful that
they might yet reach it before the Southern force could close down upon
them, but before they went many yards further he heard the beat of
horses' feet both to right and left and knew that the enemy was at hand.

"Take the train on through the pass, Canby!" shouted Colonel Newcomb.
"We'll cover its retreat, and join you later--if we can."

The train began to rattle and roar, and its speed increased.  Showers
of sparks shot from the funnels of the two engines, and gleamed for an
instant in the darkness.  The beat of horses' feet grew to thunder.
Colonel Newcomb with great presence of mind drew the two parallel lines
of his men close together, and ordered them to lie down on either side
of the railroad track and face outward with cocked rifles.  Dick,
the Vermonter, and Sergeant Whitley lay close together, and the three
faced the north.

"See the torches!" said Whitley.

Dick saw eight or ten torches wavering and flickering at a height of
seven or eight feet above the ground, and he knew that they were carried
by horsemen, but he could not see either men or horses beneath.  Then
the rapid beat of hoofs ceased abruptly at a distance that Dick thought
must be about two hundred yards.

"Lie flat!" cried Whitley.  "They're about to fire!"




CHAPTER III

THE TELEGRAPH STATION


The darkness to the north was suddenly split apart by a solid sheet of
flame.  Dick by the light saw many men on horseback and others on foot,
bridle rein over arm.  It was well for the seven hundred boys that they
had pressed themselves against the solid earth.  A sheet of bullets
swept toward them.  Most passed over their heads, but many struck upon
bones and flesh, and cries of pain rose from the lines of men lying
along the railroad track.

The seven hundred pulled trigger and fired at the flash.  They fired
so well that Dick could hear Southern horses neighing with pain, and
struggling in the darkness.  He felt sure that many men, too, had
been hit.  At least no charge came.  The seven hundred shouted with
exultation and, leaping to their feet, prepared to fire a second volley.
But the swift command of their officers quickly put them down again.

"Don't forget the other Confederate column to the south of us,"
whispered Whitley.  "They did not fire at first for fear their bullets
would pass over our heads and strike their own comrades.  For the same
reason they must have dropped back a little in order to avoid the fire
of their friends.  Their volley will come from an angle about midway
between our left and rear."

Just as he spoke the last words the rifles flashed at the surmised angle
and again the bullets beat among the young troops or swept over their
heads.  A soldier was killed only a few feet from Dick.  The boy picked
up his rifle and ammunition and began to fire whenever be saw the flash
of an opposing weapon.  But the fire of both Confederate columns ceased
in a minute or two, and not a shot nor the sound of a single order came
out of the darkness.  But Dick with his ear to the soft earth, could
hear the crush of hoofs in the mud, and with a peculiar ability to
discern whence sound came he knew that the force on the left and rear
was crossing the railroad track in order to join their comrades on the
north.  He whispered his knowledge to Whitley, who whispered back:

"It's the natural thing for them to do.  They could not afford to fight
on in the darkness with two separate forces.  The two columns would soon
be firing into each other."

Colonel Newcomb now gave an order for the men to rise and follow the
railroad track, but also to fire at the flash of the rifles whenever a
volley was poured upon them.  He must not only beat off the Southern
attack, but also continue the journey to those points in the west where
they were needed so sorely.  Some of his men had been killed, and he
was compelled to leave their bodies where they had fallen.  Others were
wounded, but without exception they were helped along by their comrades.

Warner also had secured a rifle, with which he fired occasionally,
but he and Dick, despite the darkness, kept near to Colonel Newcomb in
order that they might deliver any orders that he should choose to give.
Sergeant Whitley was close to them.  Dick presently heard the rush of
water.

"What is that?" he exclaimed.

"It's the little river that runs down the valley," replied Warner.
"There's a slope here and it comes like a torrent.  A bridge or rather
trestle is only a little further, and we've got to walk the ties,
if we reach the other side.  They'll make their heaviest rush there,
I suppose, as beyond a doubt they are thoroughly acquainted with the
ground."

The Northern troops left the track which here ran along an embankment
several feet high, and took shelter on its southern side.  They now had
an advantage for a while, as they fired from a breastwork upon their
foes, who were in the open.  But the darkness, lit only by the flashes
of the rifles, kept the fire of both sides from being very destructive,
the bullets being sent mainly at random.

Dick dimly saw the trestle work ahead of them, and the roaring of the
little river increased.  He did not know how deep the water was, but he
was sure that it could not be above his waist as it was a small stream.
An idea occurred to him and he promptly communicated it to Colonel
Newcomb.

"Suppose, sir," he said, "that we ford the river just below the trestle.
It will deceive them and we'll be half way across before they suspect
the change."

"A good plan, Mr. Mason," said Colonel Newcomb.  "We'll try it."

Word was quickly passed along the line that they should turn to the left
as they approached the trestle, march swiftly down the slope, and dash
into the stream.  As fast as they reached the other side of the ford the
men should form upon the bank there, and with their rifles cover the
passage of their comrades.

The skeleton work of the trestle now rose more clearly into view.
The rain had almost ceased and faint rays of moonlight showed through
the rifts where the clouds had broken apart.  The boys distinctly heard
the gurgling rush of waters, and they also saw the clear, bluish surface
of the mountain stream.  The same quickening of light disclosed the
Southern force on their right flank and rear, only four or five hundred
yards away.  Dick's hasty glance backward lingered for a moment on a
powerful man on a white horse just in advance of the Southern column.
He saw this man raise his hand and then command the men to fire.
He and twenty others under the impulse of excitement shouted to the
regiment to drop down, and the Northern lads did so.

Most of the volley passed over their heads.  Rising they sent back a
return discharge, and then the head of the columns rushed into the
stream.  Dick felt swift water whirling about him and tugging at his
body, but it rose no higher than his waist, although foam and spray were
dashed into his face.  He heard all around him the splashing of his
comrades, and their murmurs of satisfaction.  They realized now that
they were not only able to retreat before a much superior force, but
this same stream, when crossed, would form a barrier behind which they
could fight two to one.

The Confederate leader, whoever he might be, and Dick had no doubt that
he was the redoubtable Turner Ashby, also appreciated the full facts
and he drove his whole force straight at the regiment.  It was well for
the young troops that part of them were already across, and, under the
skillful leadership of Colonel Newcomb, Major Hertford, and three or
four old, regular army sergeants, of whom the best was Whitley, were
already forming in line of battle.

"Kneel," shouted the colonel, "and fire over the heads of your comrades
at the enemy!"

The light was still growing brighter.  The rain came only in slight
flurries.  The clouds were trooping off toward the northeast, and the
moon was out.  Dick clearly saw the black mass of the Southern horsemen
wheeling down upon them.  At least three hundred of the regiment were
now upon the bank, and, with fairly steady aim, they poured a heavy
volley into the massed ranks of their foe.  Dick saw horses fall while
others dashed away riderless.  But the Southern line wavered only for
a moment and then came on again with many shouts.  There were also
dismounted men on either flank who knelt and maintained a heavy fire
upon the defenders.

The lads in blue were suffering many wounds, but a line of trees and
underbrush on the western shore helped them.  Lying there partly
protected they loaded and pulled trigger as fast as they could, while
the rest of their comrades emerged dripping from the stream to join
them.  The Confederates, brave as they were, had no choice but to give
ground against such strong defense, and the miner colonel, despite his
reserve and his middle years, gave vent to his exultation.

"We can hold this line forever!" he exclaimed to his aides.  "It's one
thing to charge us in the open, but it's quite another to get at us
across a deep and rushing stream.  Major Hertford, take part of the men
to the other side of the railroad track and drive back any attempt at a
crossing there.  Lieutenant Mason, you and Lieutenant Warner go ahead
and see what has become of the train.  You can get back here in plenty
time for more fighting."

Dick and Warner hurried forward, following the line of the railroad.
Their blood was up and they did not like to leave the defense of the
river, but orders must be obeyed.  As they ran down the railroad track a
man came forward swinging a lantern, and they saw the tall gaunt figure
of Canby, the chief engineer.  Behind him the train stretched away in
the darkness.

"I guess that our men have forded the river and are holding the bank,"
said Canby.  "Do they need the train crew back there to help?"

He spoke with husky eagerness.  Dick knew that he was longing to be in
the middle of the fight, but that his duty kept him with the train.

"No," he replied.  "The river bank, and the road along its shore give
us a great position for defense, and I know we can hold it.  Colonel
Newcomb did not say so, but perhaps you'd better bring the train back
nearer us.  It's not our object to stay in this valley and fight,
but to go into the west.  Is all clear ahead?"

"No enemy is there.  Some of the brakemen have gone on a mile or two and
they say the track hasn't been touched.  You tell Colonel Newcomb that
I'm bringing the train right down to the battle line."

Dick and Warner returned quickly to Colonel Newcomb, who appreciated
Canby's courage and presence of mind.  As the train approached the four
cannon were unloaded from the trucks, and swept the further shore with
shell and shrapnel.  After a scattered fire the Southern force withdrew
some distance, where it halted, apparently undecided.  The clouds rolled
up again, the feeble moon disappeared, and the river sank into the dark.

"May I make a suggestion, Colonel Newcomb?" said Major Hertford.

"Certainly."

"The enemy will probably seek an undefended ford much higher up, cross
under cover of the new darkness and attack us in heavy force on the
flank.  Suppose we get aboard the train at once, cannon and all, and
leave them far behind."

"Excellent.  If the darkness covers their movements it also covers ours.
Load the train as fast as possible and see that no wounded are left
behind."

He gave rapid orders to all his officers and aides, and in fifteen
minutes the troops were aboard the train again, the cannon were lifted
upon the trucks, Canby and his assistants had all steam up, and the
train with its usual rattle and roar resumed its flight into the west.

Dick and Warner were in the first coach near Colonel Newcomb, ready for
any commands that he might give.  Both had come through the defense of
the ford without injury, although a bullet had gone through Dick's coat
without touching the skin.  Sergeant Whitley, too, was unharmed, but the
regiment had suffered.  More than twenty dead were left in the valley
for the enemy to bury.

Despite all the commands and efforts of the officers there was much
excited talk in the train.  Boys were binding up wounds of other boys
and were condoling with them.  But on the whole they were exultant.
Youth did not realize the loss of those who had been with them so
little.  Scattered exclamations came to Dick:

"We beat 'em off that time, an' we can do it again."

"Lucky though we had that little river before us.  Guess they'd have
rode us right down with their horses if it hadn't been for the stream
an' its banks."

"Ouch, don't draw that bandage so tight on my arm.  It ain't nothin' but
a flesh wound."

"I hate a battle in the dark.  Give me the good sunshine, where you can
see what's goin' on.  My God, that you Bill!  I'm tremendous glad to see
you!  I thought you was lyin' still, back there in the grass!"

Dick said nothing.  He was in a seat next to the window, and his face
was pressed against the rain-marked pane.  The rifle that he had picked
up and used so well was still clutched, grimed with smoke, in his hands.
The train had not yet got up speed.  He caught glimpses of the river
behind which they had fought, and which had served them so well as a
barrier.  In fact, he knew that it had saved them.  But they had beaten
off the enemy!  The pulses in his temples still throbbed from exertion
and excitement, but his heart beat exultantly.  The bitterness of Bull
Run was deep and it had lasted long, but here they were the victors.

The speed of the train increased and Dick knew that they were safe from
further attack.  They were still running among mountains, clad heavily
in forest, but a meeting with a second Southern force was beyond
probability.  The first had made a quick raid on information supplied
by spies in Washington, but it had failed and the way was now clear.

Ample food was served somewhat late to the whole regiment, the last
wounds were bound up, and Dick, having put aside the rifle, fell asleep
at last.  His head lay against the window and he slept heavily all
through the night.  Warner in the next seat slept in the same way.
But the wise old sergeant just across the aisle remained awake much
longer.  He was summing up and he concluded that the seven hundred lads
had done well.  They were raw, but they were being whipped into shape.

He smiled a little grimly as the unspoken words, "whipped into shape,"
rose to his lips.  The veteran of many an Indian battle foresaw
something vastly greater than anything that had occurred on the plains.
"Whipped into shape!"  Why, in the mighty war that was gathering along a
front of two thousand miles no soldier could escape being whipped into
shape, or being whipped out of it.

But the sergeant's own eyes closed after a while, and he, too, slept the
sleep of utter mental and physical exhaustion.  The train rumbled on,
the faithful Canby in the first engine aware of his great responsibility
and equal to it.  Not a wink of sleep for him that night.  The darkness
had lightened somewhat more.  The black of the skies had turned to a
dusky blue, and the bolder stars were out.  He could always see the
shining rails three or four hundred yards ahead, and he sent his train
steadily forward at full speed, winding among the gorges and rattling
over the trestles.  The silent mountains gave back every sound in dying
echoes, but Canby paid no heed to them.  His eyes were always on the
track ahead, and he, too, was exultant.  He had brought the regiment
through, and while it was on the train his responsibility was not
inferior to that of Colonel Newcomb.

When Dick awoke, bright light was pouring in at the car windows, but the
car was cold and his body was stiff and sore.  His military overcoat had
been thrown over him in the night and Warner had been covered in the
same way.  They did not know that Sergeant Whitley had done that
thoughtful act.

Dick stretched himself and drew deep breaths.  Warm youth soon sent the
blood flowing in a full tide through his veins, and the stiffness and
soreness departed.  He saw through the window that they were still
running among the mountains, but they did not seem to be so high here as
they were at the river by which they had fought in the night.  He knew
from his geography and his calculation of time that they must be far
into that part of Virginia which is now West Virginia.

There was no rain now, at least where the train was running, but the sun
had risen on a cold world.  Far up on the higher peaks he saw a fine
white mist which he believed to be falling snow.  Obviously it was
winter here and putting on the big military coat he drew it tightly
about him.  Others in the coach were waking up and some of them, grown
feverish with their wounds, were moving restlessly on their seats,
where they lay protected by the blankets of their fellows.

Dick now and then saw a cabin nestling in the lee of a hill, with the
blue smoke rising from its chimney into the clear, wintry air, and
small and poor as they were they gave him a singular sense of peace and
comfort.  His mind felt for a few moments a strong reaction from war and
its terrors, but the impulse and the strong purpose that bore him on
soon came back.

The train rushed through a pass and entered a sheltered valley a mile
or two wide and eight or ten miles long.  A large creek ran through it,
and the train stopped at a village on its banks.  The whole population
of the village and all the farmers of the valley were there to meet
them.  It was a Union valley and by some system of mountain telegraphy,
although there were no telegraph wires, news of the battle at the ford
had preceded the train.

"Come, lads," said Colonel Newcomb to his staff.  "Out with you!
We're among friends here!"

Dick and Warner were glad enough to leave the train.  The air, cold as
it was, was like the breath of heaven on their faces, and the cheers of
the people were like the trump of fame in their ears.  Pretty girls with
their faces in red hoods or red comforters were there with food and
smoking coffee.  Medicines for the wounded, as much as the village could
supply, had been brought to the train, and places were already made for
those hurt too badly to go on with the expedition.

The whole cheerful scene, with its life and movement, the sight of new
faces and the sound of many voices, had a wonderful effect upon young
Dick Mason.  He had a marvellously sensitive temperament, a direct
inheritance from his famous border ancestor, Paul Cotter.  Things were
always vivid to him.  Either they glowed with color, or they were
hueless and dead.  This morning the long strain of the night and its
battle was relaxed completely.  The grass in the valley was brown with
frost, and the trees were shorn of their leaves by the winter winds,
but to Dick it was the finest village that he had ever seen, and these
were the friendliest people in the world.

He drank a cup of hot coffee handed to him by the stalwart wife of a
farmer, and then, when she insisted, drank another.

"You're young to be fightin'," she said sympathetically.

"We all are," said Dick with a glance at the regiment, "but however we
may fight you'll never find anybody attacking a breakfast with more
valor and spirit than we do."

She looked at the long line of lads, drinking coffee and eating ham,
bacon, eggs, and hot biscuits, and smiled.

"I reckon you tell the truth, young feller," she said, "but it's good to
see 'em go at it."

She passed on to help others, and Dick, summoned by Colonel Newcomb,
went into a little railroad and telegraph station.  The telegraph wires
had been cut behind them, but ten miles across the mountains the spur of
another railroad touched a valley.  The second railroad looped toward
the north, and it was absolutely sure that it was beyond the reach of
Southern raiders.  Colonel Newcomb wished to send a message to the
Secretary of War and the President, telling of the night's events and
his triumphant passage through the ordeal.  These circumstances might
make them wish to change his orders, and at any rate the commander of
the regiment wished to be sure of what he was doing.

"You're a Kentuckian and a good horseman," said Colonel Newcomb to Dick.
"The villagers have sent me a trusty man, one Bill Petty, as a guide.
Take Sergeant Whitley and you three go to the station.  I've already
written my dispatches, and I put them in your care.  Have them sent at
once, and if necessary wait four hours for an answer.  If it comes,
ride back as fast as you can.  The horses are ready and I rely upon you."

"Thank you, sir, I'll do my best," said Dick, who deeply appreciated the
colonel's confidence.  He wasted no time in words, but went at once to
Sergeant Whitley, who was ready in five minutes.  Warner, who heard of
the mission, was disappointed because he was not going too.  But he was
philosophical.

"I've made a close calculation," he said, "and I have demonstrated to my
own satisfaction that our opportunities are sixty per cent energy and
ability, twenty per cent manners, and twenty per cent chance.  In this
case chance, which made the Colonel better acquainted with you than with
me, was in your favor.  We won't discuss the other eighty per cent,
because this twenty is enough.  Besides it looks pretty cold on the
mountains, and its fine here in the village.  But luck with you, Dick."

He gave his comrade's hand a strong grasp and walked away toward the
little square of the village, where the troops were encamped for the
present.  Dick sprang upon a horse which Bill Petty was holding for him.
Whitley was already up, and the three rode swiftly toward a blue line
which marked a cleft between two ridges.  Dick first observed their
guide.  Bill Petty was a short but very stout man, clad in a suit of
home-made blue jeans, the trousers of which were thrust into high
boots with red tops.  A heavy shawl of dark red was wrapped around his
shoulders, and beneath his broad-brimmed hat a red woolen comforter
covered his ears, cheeks, and chin.  His thick hair and a thick beard
clothing his entire face were a flaming red.  The whole effect of the
man was somewhat startling, but when he saw Dick looking at him in
curiosity his mouth opened wide in a grin of extreme good nature.

"I guess you think I'm right red," he said.  "Well, I am, an' as you see
I always dress to suit my complexion.  Guess I'll warm up the road some
on a winter day like this."

"Would you mind my callin' you Red Blaze?" asked Sergeant Whitley
gravely.

"Not-a-tall!  Not-a-tall!  I'd like it.  I guess it's sorter pictorial
an' 'maginative like them knights of old who had fancy names 'cordin' to
their qualities.  People 'round here are pretty plain, an' they've never
called me nothin' but Bill.  Red Blaze she is."

"An' Blaze for short.  Well, then, Blaze, what kind of a road is that
we're goin' to ride on?"

"Depends on the kind of weather in which you ask the question.  As it's
the fust edge of winter here in the mountains, though it ain't quite
come in the lowlands, an' as it's rained a lot in the last week, I
reckon you'll find it bad.  Mebbe our hosses will go down in the road
to thar knees, but I guess they won't sink up to thar bodies.  They may
stumble an' throw us, but as we'll hit in soft mud it ain't likely to
hurt us.  It may rain hard, 'cause I see clouds heapin' up thar in the
west.  An' if it rains the cold may then freeze a skim of ice over
the road, on which we could slip an' break our necks, hosses an' all.
Then thar are some cliffs close to the road.  If we was to slip on that
thar skim of ice which we've reckoned might come, then mebbe we'd go
over one of them cliffs and drop down a hundred feet or so right swift.
If it was soft mud down below we might not get hurt mortal.  But it
ain't soft mud.  We'd hit right in the middle of sharp, hard rocks.
An' if a gang of rebel sharpshooters has wandered up here they may see
us an' chase us 'way off into the mountains, where we'd break our necks
fallin' off the ridges or freeze to death or starve to death."

Whitley stared at him.

"Blaze," he exclaimed, "what kind of a man are you anyway?"

"Me?  I'm the happiest man in the valley.  When people are low down they
come an' talk to me to get cheered up.  I always lay the worst before
you first an' then shove it out of the way.  None of them things that
I was conjurin' up is goin' to happen.  I was just tellin' you of the
things you was goin' to escape, and now you'll feel good, knowin' what
dangers you have passed before they happened."

Dick laughed.  He liked this intensely red man with his round face and
twinkling eyes.  He saw, too, that the mountaineer was a fine horseman,
and as he carried a long slender-barreled rifle over his shoulder,
while a double-barreled pistol was thrust in his belt, it was likely
that he would prove a formidable enemy to any who sought to stop him.

"Perhaps your way is wise," said the boy.  "You begin with the bad and
end with the good.  What is the name of this place to which we are
going?"

"Hubbard.  There was a pioneer who fit the Injuns in here in early
times.  I never heard that he got much, 'cept a town named after him.
But Hubbard is a right peart little place, with a bank, two stores,
three churches, an' nigh on to two hundred people.  Are you wrapped up
well, Mr. Mason, 'cause it's goin' to be cold on the mountains?"

Dick wore heavy boots, and a long, heavy military coat which fell below
his knees and which also had a high collar protecting his ears.  He
was provided also with heavy buckskin gloves.  The sergeant was clad
similarly.

"I think I'm clothed against any amount of cold," he replied.

"Well, you need to be," said Petty, "'cause the pass through which we're
goin' is at least fifteen hundred feet above Townsville--that's our
village--an' I reckon it's just 'bout as high over Hubbard.  Them
fifteen hundred feet make a pow'ful difference in climate, as you'll
soon find out.  It's not only colder thar, but the winds are always
blowin' hard through the pass.  Jest look back at Townsville.  Ain't she
fine an' neat down thar in the valley, beside that clear creek which
higher up in the mountains is full of the juiciest an' sweetest trout
that man ever stuck a tooth into."

Dick saw that Petty was talkative, but he did not mind.  In fact,
both he and Whitley liked the man's joyous and unbroken run of chatter.
He turned in his saddle and looked back, following the stout man's
pointing finger.  Townsville, though but a little mountain town built
mainly of logs, was indeed a jewel, softened and with a silver sheen
thrown over it by the mountain air which was misty that morning.
He dimly saw the long black line of the train standing on the track,
and here and there warm rings of smoke rose from the chimneys and
floated up into the heavens, where they were lost.

He thought he could detect little figures moving beside the train and he
knew that they must be those of his comrades.  He felt for a moment a
sense of loneliness.  He had not known these lads long, but the battle
had bound them firmly together.  They had been comrades in danger and
that made them comrades as long as they lived.

"Greatest town in the world," said Petty, waving toward it a huge hand,
encased in a thick yarn glove.  "I've traveled from it as much as fifty
miles in every direction, north, south, east, an' west, an' I ain't
never seed its match.  I reckon I'm somethin' of a traveler, but every
time I come back to Townsville, I think all the more of it, seein' how
much better it is than anything else."

Dick glanced at the mountaineer, and saw that there could be no doubt of
his sincerity.

"You're a lucky man, Mr. Petty," he said, "to live in the finest place
in the world."

"Yes, if I don't get drug off to the war.  I'm not hankerin' for
fightin' an' I don't know much what the war's about though I'm for
the Union, fust to last, an' that's the way most of the people 'bout
here feel.  Turn your heads ag'in, friends, an' take another look at
Townsville."

Dick and Whitley glanced back and saw only the blank gray wall of the
mountain.  Petty laughed.  He was the finest laugher that Dick had ever
heard.  The laugh did not merely come from the mouth, it was also exuded,
pouring out through every pore.  It was rolling, unctuous, and so strong
that Petty not only shook with it, but his horse seemed to shake also.
It was mellow, too, with an organ note that comes of a mighty lung and
throat, and of pure air breathed all the year around.

"Thought I'd git the joke on you," he said, when he stopped laughing.
"The road's been slantin' into the mountains, without you knowin' it,
and Townsville is cut off by the cliffs.  You'll find it gettin' wilder
now 'till we start down the slope on the other side.  Lucky our hosses
are strong, 'cause the mud is deeper than I thought it would be."

It was not really a road that they were following, merely a path,
and the going was painful.  Under Petty's instructions they stopped
their mounts now and then for a rest, and a mile further on they began
to feel a rising wind.

"It's the wind that I told you of," said Petty.  "It's sucked through
six or seven miles of pass, an' it will blow straight in our faces
all the way.  As we'll be goin' up for a long distance you'll find it
growin' colder, too.  But you've got to remember that after you pass
them cold winds an' go down the slope you'll strike another warm little
valley, the one in which Hubbard is layin' so neat an' so snug."

Dick had already noticed the increasing coldness and so had the
sergeant.  Whitley, from his long experience on the plains, had the
keenest kind of an eye for climatic changes.  He noticed with some
apprehension that the higher peaks were clothed in thick, cold fog,
but he said nothing to the brave boy whom he had grown to love like
a son.  But both he and Dick drew their heavy coats closer and were
thankful for the buckskin gloves, without which their hands would have
stiffened on the reins.

Now they rode in silence with their heads bent well forward, because the
wind was becoming fiercer and fiercer.  Over the peaks the fogs were
growing thicker and darker and after a while the sharp edge of the wind
was wet with rain.  It stung their faces, and they drew their hat brims
lower and their coat collars higher to protect themselves from such a
cutting blast.

"Told you we might have trouble," called Petty, cheerfully, "but if you
ride right on through trouble you'll leave trouble behind.  Nor this
ain't nothin' either to what we kin expect before we git to the top of
the pass.  Cur'us what a pow'ful lot human bein's kin stand when they
make up their minds to it."

"Are the horses well shod?" asked Whitley.

"Best shod in the world, 'cause I done it myself.  That's my trade,
blacksmith, an' I'm a good one if I do say it.  I heard before we
started that you had been a soldier in the west.  I s'pose that you had
to look mighty close to your hosses then.  A man couldn't afford to be
ridin' a hoss made lame by bad shoein' when ten thousand yellin' Sioux
or Blackfeet was after him."

"No, you couldn't," replied the sergeant.  "Out there you had to watch
every detail.  That's one of the things that fightin' Indians taught.
You had to be watchin' all the time an' I reckon the trainin' will
be of value in this war.  Are we mighty near to the top of the pass,
Mr. Petty?"

"Got two or three miles yet.  The slope is steeper on the other side.
We rise a lot more before we hit the top."

The wind grew stronger with every rod they ascended, and the horses
began to pant with their severe exertions.  At Petty's suggestion the
three riders dismounted and walked for a while, leading their horses.
The rain turned to a fine hail and stung their faces.  Had it not
been for his two good comrades Dick would have found his situation
inexpressibly lonely and dreary.  The heavy fog now enveloped all the
peaks and ridges and filled every valley and chasm.  He could see only
fifteen or twenty yards ahead along the muddy path, and the fine hail
which gave every promise of becoming a storm of sleet stung continually.
The wind confined in the narrow gorge also uttered a hideous shrieking
and moaning.

"Tests your nerve!" shouted Petty to Dick.  "There are hard things
besides battles to stand, an' this is goin' to be one of the hard ones,
but if you go through it all right you kin go through any number of the
same kind all right, too.  Likely the sleet will be so thick that it
will make a sheet of slippery ice for us comin' back.  Now, hosses
that ain't got calks on thar shoes are pretty shore to slip an' fall,
breakin' a leg or two, an' mebbe breakin' the necks of thar riders."

Dick looked at him with some amazement.  Despite his announcement of
dire disaster the man's eyes twinkled merrily and the round, red outline
of his bushy head in the scarlet comforter made a cheerful blaze.

"It's jest as I told you," said Petty, meeting the boy's look.  "Without
calks on thar shoes our hosses are pretty shore to slip on the ice and
break theirselves up, or fall down a cliff an' break themselves up more."

"Then why in thunder, Blaze," exclaimed Whitley, "did we start without
calks on the shoes of our horses?"

Red Blaze broke into a deep mellow laugh, starting from the bottom of
his diaphragm, swelling as it passed through his chest, swelling again
as it passed through throat and mouth, and bursting upon the open air in
a mighty diapason that rose cheerfully above the shrieking and moaning
of the wind.

"We didn't start without em," he replied.  "The twelve feet of these
three hosses have on 'em the finest calked shoes in all these mountains.
I put 'em on myself, beginnin' the job this mornin' before you was awake,
your colonel, on the advice of the people of Townsville who know me as
one of its leadin' an' trusted citizens, havin' selected me as the guide
of this trip.  I was jest tellin' you what would happen to you if I
didn't justify the confidence of the people of Townsville."

"I allow, Red Blaze," said the sergeant with confidence, "that you ain't
no fool, an' that you're lookin' out for our best interests.  Lead on."

Red Blaze's mellow and pleased laugh rose once more above the whistling
of the wind.

"You kin ride ag'in now, boys," he said.  "The hosses are pretty well
rested."

They resumed the saddle gladly and now mounted toward the crest of the
pass.  The sleet turned to snow, which was a relief to their faces,
and Dick, with the constant beating of wind and snow, began to feel a
certain physical exhilaration.  He realized the truth of Red Blaze's
assertion that if you stiffen your back and push your way through
troubles you leave troubles behind.

They rode now in silence for quite a while, and then Red Blaze suddenly
announced:

"We're at the top, boys."




CHAPTER IV

THE FIGHT IN THE PASS


The three halted their horses and stood for a minute or two on the very
crest of the pass.  The fierce wind out of the northwest blew directly
in their faces and both riders and horses alike were covered with snow.
But Dick felt a wonderful thrill as he gazed upon the vast white
wilderness.  East and west, north and south he saw the driving snow
and the lofty peaks and ridges showing through it, white themselves.
The towns below and the cabins that snuggled in the coves were
completely hidden.  They could see no sign of human life on slope or
in valley.

"Looks as wild as the Rockies," said the sergeant tersely.

"But you won't find any Injuns here to ambush you," said Red Blaze,
"though I don't make any guarantee against bushwhackers and guerillas,
who'll change sides as often as two or three times a day, if it will
suit their convenience.  They could hide in the woods along the road an'
pick us off as easy as I'd shoot a squirrel out of a tree.  They'd like
to have our arms an' our big coats.  I tell you what, friends, a mighty
civil war like ours gives a tremenjeous opportunity to bad men.  They're
all comin' to the top.  Every rascal in the mountains an' in the
lowlands, too, I guess, is out lookin' for plunder an' wuss."

"You're right, Red Blaze," said the sergeant with emphasis, "an' it
won't be stopped until the generals on both sides begin to hang an'
shoot the plunderers an' murderers."

"But they can't ketch 'em all," said Red Blaze.  "A Yankee general with
a hundred thousand men will be out lookin' for what?  Not for a gang of
robbers, not by a jugful.  He'll be lookin' for a rebel general with
another hundred thousand men, an' the rebel general with a hundred
thousand men will be lookin' for that Yankee general with his hundred
thousand.  So there you are, an' while they're lookin' for each other
an' then fightin' each other to a standstill, the robbers will be
plunderin' an' murderin'.  But don't you worry about bein' ambushed.
I was jest tellin' you what might happen, but wouldn't happen.  We kin
go down hill fast now, and we'll soon be in Hubbard, which is the other
side of all that fallin' snow."

The road down the mountain was also better than the one by which they
had ascended, and as the horses with their calked shoes were swift of
foot they made rapid progress.  As they descended, the wind lowered
fast and there was much less snow.  Red Blaze said it was probably not
snowing in the valley at all.

"See that shinin' in the sun," he said.  "That's the tin coverin' on the
steeple of the new church in Hubbard.  The sun strikes squar'ly on it,
an' now I know I'm right 'bout it not snowin' down thar.  Wait 'til we
turn 'roun' this big rock.  Yes, thar's Hubbard, layin' out in the
valley without a drop of snow on her.  It looks good, don't it, friends,
with the smoke comin' out of the chimneys.  That little red house over
thar is the railroad an' telegraph station, an' we'll go straight for it,
'cause we ain't got no time to waste."

They emerged into the valley and rode rapidly for the station.  Farmers
on the outskirts and villagers looked wonderingly at them, but they
did not pause to answer questions.  They galloped their tired mounts
straight for the little red building, which was the station.  Dick
sprang first from his horse, and leaving it to stand at the door,
ran inside.  A telegraph instrument was clicking mournfully in the
corner.  A hot stove was in another corner, and sitting near it was a
lad of about Dick's age, clad in mountain jeans, and lounging in an
old cane-bottomed chair.  But Dick's quick glance saw that the boy was
bright of face and keen of eye.  He promptly drew out his papers and
said:

"I'm an aide from the Northern regiment of Colonel Newcomb at
Townsville.  Here are duplicate dispatches, one set for the President of
the United States and the other for the Secretary of War.  They tell
of a successful fight that we had last night with Southern troops,
presumably the cavalrymen of Turner Ashby.  I wish you to send them at
once."

"He's speakin' the exact truth, Jim," said Red Blaze, who had come
in behind Dick, "an' I've brought him an' the sergeant here over the
mountains to tell about it."

The boy sprang to his instrument.  But he stopped a moment to ask one
question.

"Did you really beat 'em off?" he asked as he looked up with shining eye.

"We certainly did," replied Dick.

"I'll send it faster than I ever sent anything before," said the boy.
"To think of me, Jim Johnson, sending a dispatch to Abraham Lincoln,
telling of a victory!"

"I reckon you're right, Jim, it's your chance," said Red Blaze.

Jim bent over the instrument which now began to click steadily and fast.

"You're to wait for answers," said Dick.

The boy nodded, but his shining eyes remained bent over the instrument.
Dick went to the door, brushed off the snow, came back and sat down by
the stove.  Sergeant Whitley, who had tied the horses to hitching posts,
came in, pulled up an empty box and sat down by him.  Red Blaze slipped
away unnoticed.  But he came back very soon, and men and women came with
him, bringing food and smoking coffee.  There was enough for twenty.

Red Blaze had spread among the villagers, every one of whom he knew,
the news that the Union arms had won a victory.  Nor had it suffered
anything in the telling.  Colonel Newcomb's regiment, by the most
desperate feats of gallantry, had beaten off at least ten thousand
Southerners, and the boy and the man in uniform, who were resting by the
fire in the station, had been the greatest two heroes of a battle waged
for a whole night.

Curious eyes gazed at Dick and the sergeant as they sat there by the
stove.  Dick himself, warm, relaxed, and the needs of his body satisfied,
felt like going to sleep.  But he watched the boy operator, who
presently finished his two dispatches and then lifted his head for the
first time.

"They've gone straight into Washington," he said.  "We ought to get an
answer soon."

"We'll wait here for it," said Dick.

The three messengers were now thoroughly warmed at the stove, they
had eaten heartily of the best the village could furnish, and a great
feeling of comfort pervaded them.  While they were waiting for the reply
that they hoped would come from Washington, Dick Mason and Sergeant
Whitley went outside.  No snow was falling in the valley, but off on the
mountain crest they still saw the white veil, blown by the wind.

Red Blaze joined them and was everywhere their guide and herald.
He ascribed to them such deeds of skill and valor that they were
compelled to call him the best romancer they had met in a long time.

"I suppose that if Mr. Warner were here," said the sergeant, "he would
reduce these statements to mathematics, ten per cent fact an' ninety per
cent fancy."

"Just about that," said Dick.

Red Blaze came to them presently, bristling with news.

"A farmer from a hollow further to the west," he said, "has just come in,
an' he says that a band of guerillas is ridin' through the hills.
'Bout twenty of them, he said, led by a big dark fellow, his face
covered with black beard.  They've been liftin' hosses an' takin' other
things, but they're strangers in these parts.  Tom Sykes, who was held
up by them an' robbed of his hoss, says that the rest of 'em called
their leader Skelly.  Tom seemed to think that mebbe they came from
somewhere in the Kentucky mountains.  They called themselves a scoutin'
party of the Southern army."

Dick started violently.

"Why, I know this man Skelly," he said.  "He lives in the mountains
to the eastward of my home in Kentucky.  He organized a band at the
beginning of the war, but over there he said he was fightin' for the
North."

"He'll be fightin' for his own hand," said the sergeant sternly.
"But he can't play double all the time.  That sort of thing will bring
a man to the end of a rope, with clear air under his feet."

"I'm glad you've told me this," said Red Blaze.  "Skelly might have
come ridin' in here, claimin' that he an' his men was Northern troops,
an' then when we wasn't suspectin' might have held up the whole town.
I'll warn 'em.  Thar ain't a house here that hasn't got two or three
rifles an' shotguns in it, an' with the farmers from the valley joinin'
in Hubbard could wipe out the whole gang."

"Tell them to be on guard all the time, Red Blaze," said Whitley with
strong emphasis.  "In war you've got to watch, watch, watch.  Always
know what the other fellow is doin', if you can."

"Let's go back to the station," said Dick.  "Maybe we'll have an answer
soon."

They found the young operator hanging over his instrument, his eyes
still shining.  He had been in that position ever since they left him,
and Dick knew that his eagerness to get an answer from Washington kept
him there, mind and body waiting for the tick of the key.

Dick, the sergeant, and Red Blaze sat down by the stove again, and
rested there quietly for a quarter of an hour.  Red Blaze was thinking
that it would be another cold ride back over the pass.  The sergeant,
although he was not sleepy, closed his eyes and saw again the vast
rolling plains, the herds of buffalo spreading to the horizon, and the
bands of Sioux and Cheyennes galloping down, their great war bonnets
making splashes of color against the thin blue sky.  Dick was thinking
of Pendleton, the peaceful little town in Kentucky that was his home,
and of his cousin, Harry Kenton.  He did not know now where Harry was,
and he did not even know whether he was dead or alive.

Dick sighed a little, and just at that moment the telegraph key began to
click.

"The answer is coming!" exclaimed the young operator excitedly and then
he bent closer over the key to take it.  The three chairs straightened
up, and they, too, bent toward the key.  The boy wrote rapidly, but the
clicking did not go on long.  When it ceased he straightened up with his
finished message in his hand.  His face was flushed and his eyes still
shining.  He folded the paper and handed it to Dick.

"It's for you, Mr. Mason," he said.

Dick unfolded it and read aloud:


"Colonel John D. Newcomb:

"Congratulations on your success and fine management of your troops.
Victory worth much to us.  Read dispatch to regiment and continue
westward to original destination.

                                        A. LINCOLN."


Dick's face glowed, and the sergeant's teeth came together with a little
click of satisfaction.

"When I saw that it was to be read to the regiment I thought it no harm
to read it to the rest of you," said Dick, as he refolded the precious
dispatch and put it in his safest pocket.  "Now, sergeant, I think we
ought to be off at full speed."

"Not a minute to waste," said Sergeant Whitley.

Their horses had been fed and were rested well.  The three bade farewell
to the young operator, then to almost all of Hubbard and proceeded in
a trot for the pass.  They did not speak until they were on the first
slope, and then the sergeant, looking up at the heights, asked:

"Shall we have snow again on our return, Red Blaze?  I hope not.
It's important for us to get back to Townsville without any waste of
time."

"I hate to bring bad news," replied Red Blaze, "but we'll shore have
more snow.  See them clouds, sailin' up an' always sailin' up from the
southwest, an' see that white mist 'roun' the highest peaks.  That's
snow, an' it'll hit the pass just as it did when we was comin' over.
But we've got this in favor of ourselves an' our hosses now: The wind
is on our backs."

They rode hard now.  Dick had received the precious message from the
President, and it would be a proud moment for him when he put it in
the hands of the colonel.  He did not wish that moment to be delayed.
Several times he patted the pocket in which the paper lay.

As they ascended, the wind increased in strength, but being on their
backs now it seemed to help them along.  They were soon high up on the
slopes and then they naturally turned for a parting look at Hubbard in
its valley, a twin to that of Townsville.  It looked from afar neat and
given up to peace, but Dick knew that it had been stirred deeply by the
visit of his comrades and himself.

"It seems," he said, "that the war would pass by these little mountain
nests."

"But it don't," said Red Blaze.  "War, I guess, is like a mad an'
kickin' mule, hoofs lashin' out everywhar, an' you can't tell what
they're goin' to hit.  Boys, we're makin' good time.  That wind on our
backs fairly lifts us up the mountain side."

Petty had all the easy familiarity of the backwoods.  He treated the boy
and man who rode with him as comrades of at least a year's standing,
and they felt in return that he was one of them, a man to be trusted.
They retained all the buoyancy which the receipt of the dispatch had
given them, and Dick, his heart beating high, scarcely felt the wind and
cold.

"In another quarter of an hour we'll be at the top," said Petty.
Then he added after a moment's pause: "If I'm not mistook, we'll have
company.  See that path, leadin' out of the west, an' runnin' along the
slope.  It comes into the main road, two or three hundred yards further
on, an' I think I can see the top of a horseman's head ridin' in it.
What do you say, sergeant?"

"I say that you are right, Red Blaze.  I plainly see the head of a big
man, wearing a fur cap, an' there are others behind him, ridin' in
single file.  What's your opinion, Mr. Mason?"

"The same as yours and Red Blaze's.  I, too, can see the big man with
the fur cap on his head and at least a dozen following behind.  Do you
think it likely, Red Blaze, that they'll reach the main road before we
pass the mouth of the path?"

A sudden thought had leaped up in Dick's mind and it set his pulses to
beating hard.  He remembered some earlier words of Red Blaze's.

"We'll go by before they reach the main road," replied Red Blaze,
"unless they make their hosses travel a lot faster than they're
travelin' now."

"Then suppose we whip up a little," said Dick.

Both Red Blaze and the sergeant gave him searching glances.

"Do you mean--" began Whitley.

"Yes, I mean it.  I know it.  The man in front wearing the fur cap is
Bill Skelly.  He and his men made an attack upon the home of my uncle,
Colonel Kenton, who is a Southern leader in Kentucky.  He and his band
were Northerners there, but they will be Southerners here, if it suits
their purpose."

"An' it will shorely suit their purpose to be Southerners now," said
Red Blaze.  "We three are ridin' mighty good hoss flesh.  Me an' the
sergeant have good rifles an' pistols, you have good pistols, an' we
all have good, big overcoats.  This is a lonely mountain side with war
flyin' all about us.  Easy's the place an' easy's the deed.  That is
if we'd let 'em, which we ain't goin' to do."

"Not by a long shot," said Sergeant Whitley, resting his rifle across
the pommel of his saddle.  "They've got to follow straight behind.
The ground is too rough for them to ride around an' flank us."

Dick said nothing, but his gauntleted hand moved down to the butt of one
of his pistols.  His heart throbbed, but he preserved the appearance of
coolness.  He was fast becoming inured to danger.  Owing to the slope
they could not increase the speed of their horses greatly, but they were
beyond the mouth of the path before they were seen by Skelly and his
band.  Then the big mountaineer uttered a great shout and began to wave
his hand at them.

"The road curves here a little among the rocks," said the sergeant,
who unconsciously took command.  "Suppose we stop, sheltered by the
curve, and ask them what they want."

"The very thing to do," said Dick.

"Sass 'em, sergeant!  Sass 'em!" said Red Blaze.

They drew their horses back partially in the shadow of the rocky curve,
but the sergeant was a little further forward than the others.  Dick saw
Skelly and a score of men emerge into the road and come rapidly toward
them.  They were a wild-looking crew, mounted on tough mountain ponies,
all of them carrying loot, and all armed heavily.

The sergeant threw up his rifle, and with a steady hand aimed straight
at Skelly's heart.

"Halt!" he cried sharply, "and tell me who you are!"

The whole crew seemed to reel back except Skelly, who, though stopping
his horse, remained in the center of the road.

"What do you mean?" he cried.  "We're peaceful travelers.  What business
is it of yours who we are?"

"Judgin' by your looks you're not peaceful travelers at all.  Besides
these ain't peaceful times an' we take the right to demand who you are.
If you come on another foot, I shoot."

The sergeant's tones were sharp with resolve.

"Your name!" he continued.

"Ramsdell, David Ramsdell," replied the leader of the band.

"That's a lie," said Sergeant Whitley.  "Your name is Bill Skelly,
an' you're a mountaineer from Eastern Kentucky, claimin' to belong first
to one side and then to the other as suits you."

"Who says so?" exclaimed Skelly defiantly.

The sergeant beckoned Dick, who rode forward a little.

"I do," said the boy in a loud, clear voice.  "My name is Dick Mason,
and I live at Pendleton in Kentucky.  I saw you more than once before
the war, and I know that you tried to burn down the house of Colonel
Kenton there, and kill him and his friends.  I'm on the other side,
but I'm not for such things as that."

Skelly distinctly saw Dick sitting on his horse in the pass, and he knew
him well.  Rage tore at his heart.  Although on "the other side" this
boy, too, was a lowlander and in a way a member of that vile Kenton
brood.  He hated him, too, because he belonged to those who had more of
prosperity and education than himself.  But Skelly was a man of resource
and not a coward.

"You're right," he cried, "I'm Bill Skelly, an' we want your horses an'
arms.  We need 'em in our business.  Now, just hop down an' deliver.
We're twenty to three."

"You come forward at your own risk!" cried the sergeant, and Skelly,
despite the numbers at his back, wavered.  He saw that the man who held
the rifle aimed at his heart had nerves of steel, and he did not dare
advance knowing that he would be shot at once from the saddle.  A
victory won by Skelly's men with Skelly dead was no victory at all to
Skelly.

The guerilla reined back his horse, and his men retreated with him.
But the three knew well that it was no withdrawal.  The mountaineers
rode among some scrub that grew between the road and the cliff; and
Whitley exclaimed to his two comrades:

"Come boys, we must ride for it!  It's our business to get back with the
dispatches to Colonel Newcomb as soon as possible, an' not let ourselves
be delayed by this gang."

"That is certainly true," said Dick.  "Lead on, Mr. Petty, and we'll
cross the mountain as fast as we can."

Red Blaze started at once in a gallop, and Dick and the sergeant
followed swiftly after.  But Sergeant Whitley held his cocked rifle in
hand and he cast many backward glances.  A great shout came from Skelly
and his band when they saw the three take to flight, and the sergeant's
face grew grimmer as the sound reached his ears.

"Keep right in the middle of the road, boys," he said.  "We can't afford
to have our horses slip.  I'll hang back just a little and send in a
bullet if they come too near.  This rifle of mine carries pretty far,
farther, I expect, than any of theirs."

"I'm somethin' on the shoot myself," said Red Blaze.  "I love peace,
but it hurts my feelin's if anybody shoots at me.  Them fellers are
likely to do it, an' me havin' a rifle in my hands I won't be able to
stop the temptation to fire back."

As he spoke the raiders fired.  There was a crackling of rifles, little
curls of blue smoke rose in the pass, and bullets struck on the frozen
earth, while two made the snow fly from bushes by the side of the road.
The sergeant raised his own rifle, longer of barrel than the average
army weapon, and pulled the trigger.  He had aimed at Skelly, but the
leader swerved, and a man behind him rolled off his horse.  The others,
although slowing their speed a little, in order to be out of the range
of that deadly rifle, continued to come.

The pursuit at first seemed futile to Dick, because they would soon
descend into Townsville's valley, and the raiders could not follow them
into the midst of an entire regiment.  But presently he saw their plan.
The pass now widened out with a few hundred yards of level space on
either side of the road thickly covered with forest.  The branches of
the trees were bare, but the undergrowth was so dense that horsemen
could he hidden in it.  Bands of the raiders darted into the woods both
to right and left, and he knew that advancing on a straight line one or
the other of the parties expected to catch the fugitives who must follow
the curves of the road.

The advantage of the pursuit was soon shown as a shot from the right
whistled by them.  Red Blaze, quick as lightning, fired at the flash of
the rifle.

"I don't know whether I hit him or not," he said, judicially, "but the
chances are pow'ful good that I did.  Still it looks as if they meant to
hang on an' likely we kin soon expect shots from the other side, too.
Then if they know the country