Part 4 (2/2)

The colonel, moreover, gave glances of approval and sympathy to his gallant young aide, who in the seat next to the window with his head against the wall slept so soundly. All the afternoon d.i.c.k slept on, his breathing regular and steady. The train rattled and rumbled through the high mountains, and on the upper levels the snow was falling fast.

Darkness came, and supper was served to the troops, but at the colonel's command d.i.c.k was not awakened. Nature had not yet finished her task of repairing. There was worn tissue still to be replaced, and the nerves had not yet recovered their full steadiness.

So d.i.c.k slept on, while the night deepened and the snow continued to drive against the window panes. Nor did he awake until morning, when the train stopped at a tiny station in the hills. There was no snow here, but the sun, just rising, threw no heat, and icicles were hanging from every cliff. Dispatches were waiting for Colonel Newcomb, and after breakfast he announced to his staff: ”I have orders from Was.h.i.+ngton to divide my regiment. The Southern forces are operating at three points in Kentucky. They are gathering at Columbus on the Mississippi, at Bowling Green in the south, and here in the mountains there is a strong division under an officer named Zollicoffer. Scattered forces of our men, the princ.i.p.al one led by a Virginian named Thomas, are endeavoring to deal with Zollicoffer. The Secretary of War regrets the division of the regiment, but he thinks it necessary, as all our detached forces must be strengthened. I go on with the main body of the regiment to join Grant, near the mouth of the Ohio. You, Major Hertford, will take three companies and march south in search of Thomas, but be careful that you are not snapped up by the rebels on the way. And if you can get volunteers and join Thomas with your force increased threefold, so much the better.”

”I shall try my best, sir,” said Major Hertford, ”and thank you for this honor.”

d.i.c.k and Warner stood by without a word, but d.i.c.k cast an appealing look at Colonel Newcomb.

”Yes, I know,” said the Colonel, who caught the glance. ”This is your state, and you wish to go with Major Hertford. You are to do so. So is your friend, Lieutenant Warner, and, Major Hertford, I also lend to you Sergeant Whitley, who is a man of much experience and who has already proved himself to be of great value.”

The three saluted and were grateful. They longed for action, which they believed would come more quickly with Major Hertford's column. A little later, when military form permitted it, the two boys thanked Colonel Newcomb in words.

”Maybe you won't thank me a few days from now,” said the colonel a little grimly, ”but I am hopeful that our plans here in Eastern Kentucky will prove successful, and that before long you will be able to join the great forces in the western part of the state. You are both good boys and now, good-bye.”

The preparations for the mountain column, as d.i.c.k and Warner soon called it, had been completed. They were on foot, but they were well armed, well clothed, and they had supplies loaded in several wagons, purchased hastily in the village. A dozen of the strong mountaineers volunteered to be drivers and guides, and the major was glad to have them. Later, several horses were secured for the officers, but, meanwhile, the train was ready to depart.

Colonel Newcomb waved them farewell, the faithful and valiant Canby opened the throttle, and the train steamed away. The men in the little column, although eager for their new task, watched its departure with a certain sadness at parting with their comrades. The train became smaller and smaller, then it was only a spiral of smoke, and that, too, soon died on the clear western horizon.

”And now to find Thomas!” said Major Hertford, who retained d.i.c.k and Warner on his staff, practically its only members, in fact. ”It looks odd to hunt through the mountains for a general and his army, but we've got it to do, and we'll do it.”

The horses for the officers were obtained at the suggestion of Sergeant Whitley, and the little column turned southward through the wintry forest. d.i.c.k and Warner were riding strong mountain ponies, but at times, and in order to show that they considered themselves no better than the others, they dismounted and walked over the frozen ground. The greatest tasks were with the wagons containing the ammunition and supplies. The mountain roads were little more than trails, sometimes half blocked with ice or snow and then again deep in mud. The winter was severe. Storms of rain, hail, sleet and snow poured upon them, but, fortunately, they were marching through continuous forests, and the skilled mountaineers, under any circ.u.mstances, knew how to build fires, by the side of which they could dry themselves, and sleep warmly at night.

They also heard much gossip as they advanced to meet General Thomas, who had been sent from Louisville to command the Northern troops in the Kentucky mountains. Thomas was a Virginian, a member of the old regular army, a valiant, able, and cautious man, who chose to abide by the Union. Many other Virginians, some destined to be as famous as he, and a few more so, wondered why he had not gone with his seceding state, and criticised him much, but Thomas, chary of speech, hung to his belief, and proved it by action.

d.i.c.k learned, too, that the Southern force operating against Thomas, while actively led by Zollicoffer, was under the nominal command of one of his own Kentucky Crittendens. Here he saw again how terribly his beloved state was divided, like other border states. General Crittenden's father was a member of the Federal Congress at Was.h.i.+ngton, and one of his brothers was a general also, but on the other side. But he was to see such cases over and over again, and he was to see them to a still greater and a wholesale degree, when the First Maryland regiment of the North and the First Maryland regiment of the South, recruited from the same district, should meet face to face upon the terrible field of Antietam.

But Antietam was far in the future, and d.i.c.k's mind turned from the cases of brother against brother to the problems of the icy wilderness through which they were moving, in a more or less uncertain manner. Sometimes they were sent on false trails, but their loyal mountaineers brought them back again. They also found volunteers, and Major Hertford's little force swelled from three hundred to six hundred. In the main, the mountaineers were sympathetic, partly through devotion to the Union, and partly through jealousy of the more prosperous lowlanders.

One day Major Hertford sent d.i.c.k, Warner, and Sergeant Whitley, ahead to scout. He had recognized the ability of the two lads, and also their great friends.h.i.+p for Sergeant Whitley. It seemed fitting to him that the three should be nearly always together, and he watched them with confidence, as they rode ahead on the icy mountain trail and then disappeared from sight.

d.i.c.k and his friends had learned, at mountain cabins which they had pa.s.sed, that the country opened out further on into a fine little valley, and when they reached the crest of a hill somewhat higher than the others, they verified the truth of the statement. Before them lay the coziest nook they had yet seen in the mountains, and in the center of it rose a warm curl of smoke from the chimney of a house, much superior to that of the average mountaineer. The meadows and corn lands on either side of a n.o.ble creek were enclosed in good fences. Everything was trim and neat.

The three rode down the slope toward the house, but halfway to the bottom they reined in their ponies and listened. Some one was singing. On the thin wintry air a deep mellow voice rose and they distinctly heard the words: Soft o'er the fountain, ling'ring falls the southern moon, Far o'er the mountain breaks the day too soon.

In thy dark eyes' splendor, where the warm light loves to dwell, Weary looks yet tender, speak their fond farewell.

'Nita, Juanita! Ask thy soul if we should part, 'Nita, Juanita! Lean thou on my heart.

It was a wonderful voice that they heard, deep, full, and mellow, all the more wonderful because they heard it there in those lone mountains. The ridges took up the echo, and gave it back in tones softened but exquisitely haunting.

The three paused and looked at one another. They could not see the singer. He was hidden from them by the dips and swells of the valley, but they felt that here was no common man. No common mind, or at least no common heart, could infuse such feeling into music. As they listened the remainder of the pathetic old air rose and swelled through the ridges: When in thy dreaming, moons like these shall s.h.i.+ne again, And daylight beaming prove thy dreams are vain, Wilt thou not, relenting, for thy absent lover sigh?

In thy heart consenting to a prayer gone by!

'Nita, Juanita! Let me linger by thy side!

'Nita, Juanita! Be thou my own fair bride.

”I'm curious to see that singer,” said Warner. ”I heard grand opera once in Boston, just before I started to the war, but I never heard anything that sounds finer than this. Maybe time and place help to the extent of fifty per cent, but, at any rate, the effect is just the same.”

”Come on,” said d.i.c.k, ”and we'll soon find our singer, whoever he is.”

The three rode at a rapid pace until they reached the valley. There they drew rein, as they saw near them a tall man, apparently about forty years of age, mending a fence, helped by a boy of heavy build and powerful arms. The man glanced up, saw the blue uniforms worn by the three hors.e.m.e.n, and went peacefully on with his fence-mending. He also continued to sing, throwing his soul into the song, and both work and song proceeded as if no one was near.

He lifted the rails into place with mighty arms, but never ceased to sing. The boy who helped him seemed almost his equal in strength, but he neither sang nor spoke. Yet he smiled most of the time, showing rows of exceedingly strong, white teeth.

”They seem to me to be of rather superior type,” said d.i.c.k. ”Maybe we can get useful information from them.”

”I judge that the singer will talk about almost everything except what we want to know,” said the shrewd and experienced sergeant, ”but we can certainly do no harm by speaking to him. Of course they have seen us. No doubt they saw us before we saw them.”

The three rode forward, saluted politely and the fence-menders, stopping their work, saluted in the same polite fas.h.i.+on. Then they stood expectant.

”We belong to a detachment which is marching southward to join the Union army under General Thomas,” said d.i.c.k. ”Perhaps you could tell us the best road.”

”I might an' ag'in I mightn't, stranger. If you don't talk much you never have much to take back. If I knew where that army is it would be easy for me to tell you, but if I didn't know I couldn't. Now, the question is, do I know or don't I know? Do you think you can decide it for me stranger?”

It was impossible for d.i.c.k or the sergeant to take offense. The man's gaze was perfectly frank and open and his eyes twinkled as he spoke. The boy with him smiled widely, showing both rows of his powerful white teeth.

”We can't decide it until we know you better,” said d.i.c.k in a light tone.

”I'm willin' to tell you who I am. My name is Sam Jarvis, an' this lunkhead here is my nephew, Ike Simmons, the son of my sister, who keeps my house. Now I want to tell you, young stranger, that since this war began and the Yankees and the Johnnies have taken a notion to shoot up one another, people who would never have thought of doin' it before, have come wanderin' into these mountains. But you can get a hint about 'em sometimes. Young man, do you want me to tell you your name?”

”Tell me my name!” responded d.i.c.k in astonishment. ”Of course you can't do it! You never saw or heard of me before.”

”Mebbe no,” replied Jarvis, with calm confidence, ”but all the same your name is d.i.c.k Mason, and you come from a town in Kentucky called Pendleton. You've been serving with the Yanks in the East, an' you've a cousin, named Harry Kenton, who's been servin' there also, but with the Johnnies. Now, am I a good guesser or am I just a plum' ignorant fool?”

d.i.c.k stared at him in deepening amazement.

”You do more than guess,” he replied. ”You know. Everything that you said is true.”

”Tell me this,” said Jarvis. ”Was that cousin of yours, Harry Kenton, killed in the big battle at Bull Run? I've been tremenjeously anxious about him ever since I heard of that terrible fight.”

”He was not. I have not seen him since, but I have definite news now that he pa.s.sed safely through the battle.”

Sam Jarvis and his nephew Ike breathed deep sighs of relief.

”I'm mighty glad to hear it,” said Jarvis, ”I sh.o.r.ely liked that boy, Harry, an' I think I'll like you about as well. It don't matter to me that you're on different sides, bein' as I ain't on any side at all myself, nor is this lunkhead, Ike, my nephew.”

”How on earth did you know me?”

”'Light, an' come into the house an' I'll tell you. You an' your pardners look cold an' hungry. There ain't danger of anybody taking your hosses, 'cause you can hitch 'em right at the front door. Besides, I've got an old grandmother in the house, who'd like mighty well to see you, Mr. Mason.”

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