They stripped their saddles and allowed the horses freedom for the first time in hours, an act which was against prudence but which McKeever would expect of Union troops. Drew lay full length under the curving limbs of an apple tree, his head pillowed on saddlebags.

"Now I wonder"—Kirby dropped down, to sit with his back against the tree trunk—"why they always say a fella is dog-tired. A dog, he ain't got him much to do 'cept chase around on his own business. Soldier-tired—now that's another matter. How 'bout it, kid? You ready to ride right outta heah an' chase General Grant clean back to Lake Erie?"

Boyd had stretched out only a hand's length from Drew. There were dark smudges under his closed eyes, hardly to be told from the smears of dirt on his round cheeks, but there. He rolled his head on a hammock of grass and scowled at Kirby.

"General Grant can—" he added a remark which surprised Drew into opening his eyes. Kirby shook his head reprovingly.

"Now that ain't no way for a growin' boy to talk. An' it sits on your tongue as easy as a fly on a mule's ear, too. What kinda company you bin keepin', kid? Rennie, this heah colt ain't got no reason to cram grammar into a remark that way."

Drew stretched, folded his arms under his head, and answered, in a voice he tried to make as blighting as possible: "Thinks it makes him sound like a man, probably. He's findin' out the army ain't quite what he expected."

"You shut up—!" Boyd might have added something to that, but Drew had moved. He leaned over the youngster, his hand hard and heavy on Boyd's shoulder. And it was plain that, much as he wanted to, the other did not quite dare to move or shake off that grip.

"I've had about enough," Drew said quietly. "The next town we hit you're goin' to stay there, until someone comes from back home to collect you. Nobody knows you're with us, and you can go back to Oak Hill without any trouble from Union troops."

Boyd's eyes blazed. His mouth wasn't shaping a small boy's pout this time; it was an ugly line tight against his teeth.

"I ain't goin' home! I said you can't make me, 'less you tie me on a horse and keep me tied all the way. And I don't think you can do that, Drew Rennie. I'd like to see you try it; I sure would!"

"He's got you on a stand-off, I'd say," Kirby remarked. "My, ain't he the tough one though, horns sticking up an' haired all over! Gentlemen—" he had glanced over their shoulder and was watching whatever was there—"company comin'. Mind your manners!"

Drew looked around. His hand clamped tighter on Boyd, keeping him pinned on his back. If he only had time ... but there was no way of disguising the younger boy. And Thomas McKeever, strolling with Captain Campbell, had already sighted them, stopped short, and now was moving swiftly in their direction.

"Boyd Barrett!"

Drew had to release his hold and Boyd sat up, brushing bits of grass from his shirt sleeves even as he returned Mr. McKeever's stare with composure.

"Yes, suh?" Boyd was on his feet now, making his manners with the speed of one harboring a guilty conscience.

"What are you doing with this gang of cutthroats and banditti?" Mr. McKeever had an excellent voice to deliver such an inquiry; it could rattle the unaware into confusion, and sometimes even into quick confession, as he undoubtedly knew.

"I'm with General Morgan, Mr. McKeever." Boyd did not appear too ruffled.

"I refuse to believe that even that unprincipled ruffian is robbing cradles to fill up his ranks, depleted as they may be—"

Boyd reddened. "General Morgan ain't no ... no unprincipled ruffian!"

"Yeah," Kirby drawled. As the other two, he had risen to his feet on the approach of the older man. "Them's pretty harsh words, suh. Cutthroat now—I ain't never slit me a throat in all my born days. What about you, Rennie? You done any fancy work with a bowie lately?"

Mr. McKeever favored the Texan with a passing frown; then his attention settled on Drew. "Rennie," he repeated, and then said the name again with the emphasis of one making a court identification. "Drew Rennie!"

"Yes, suh." As Boyd had done, Drew answered to the indictment of being where he was and who he was.

"I am most unhappy to see Alexander Mattock's grandson and Meredith Barrett's son in such company. Surely"—he turned to Captain Campbell—"these boys are not your regular prisoners—"

Campbell shook his head gravely. "Unfortunately, sir, they are indeed troopers with Morgan. And, as such, they are subject to the rules of war governing prisoners—"

"That does not prevent my seeing what I can do for both of you," their host said quickly. "At least, Boyd, you are young enough to be released by the authorities. Be sure I shall do all I can to bring that about."

As Boyd opened his mouth to protest, Drew spoke quickly:

"Thank you, suh. I know Cousin Merry will appreciate that."

With a last assurance of his intention to help them, Mr. McKeever left. Boyd grinned.

"He did help me," he observed. "He knows now I'm with Morgan, and nobody can say that's not so!"

Kirby laughed. "Reckon that's true, kid. You locked yourself right into the corral along with the rest of us bad men. Look's like you've been outfought this time, Rennie."

Drew threw himself back under the tree. So Boyd had won this round—they were still in Kentucky and not too far from Oak Hill.



5

Bardstown Surrenders

"Now that's what I call true hospitality, gentlemen, true hospitality." Kirby caressed his middle section gently with both hands, smiling dreamily into the lacing of apple boughs over his head. "I ain't had me a feed like that since we took that sutler's wagon back outside Mount Sterlin'. 'Mos' forgot theah was such vittles lyin' 'bout to be sampled. An' you got us most of the cream, too, 'cause you're poor little misguided boys a-runnin' 'way to be with us desperate characters. Git me a bowie knife, an' I'll show you how to cut throats—all free, too."

Drew laughed, but Boyd did not appear amused. They had been favored with a short but pungent lecture from Mr. McKeever, served along with food, which to Drew made it worth the return of listening decorously to a listing of their sins.

"I ain't goin' home," Boyd repeated stubbornly.

"Well," Kirby pointed out, "if he rides up to the Yankee prison camp, he ain't gonna find you neither. So what's the difference? I think we oughta be movin' on, seein' as how we ain't really on speakin' terms with the law heah 'bouts."

It would appear that Captain Campbell agreed with that. The order came to saddle up and move out. But they went with provision sacks slung from their saddles, a portion of McKeever's bounty stowed away against tomorrow. And once they were past the house, the word came down the line for Drew to quit his prisoner's role and join their commander.

Campbell held a fragment of map as he let his mount's pace fall to a slow walk. "There are about a hundred Union infantry stationed at Bardstown, according to Mr. McKeever. Know anything about the town?"

"I was there once. My cousin went to St. Joseph's for a term."

"Remember enough to find your way around?"

"I don't know, suh. But if there's a Union garrison—?" He ended the sentence with an implied question.

"What are we going to do there?" The captain grinned. "We're going to collect some arms, I hope. Supposing you were a Yankee commander, Rennie, and a bold, bad raider like General Morgan was to ride clean up to your door with a regiment or two tailing him and say: 'Your guns, suh, or your life!' What would you do, especially if your troops were mostly militia and green men who hadn't ever been in a real fight?"

Drew understood. "Probably, suh, I'd tell General Morgan that he could have his guns, providin' he kept his side of the bargain."

"As far as the Yankees in Bardstown may know, General Morgan could be headed their way right now with a regiment. I don't think they've had time yet to learn just how badly we were scattered back there by the Licking River. You willing to take the flag in when we get there, Rennie? Pick a couple of outriders to go with you!"

It was risky, but no more risky than bluffs he had seen work before. And they did need the weapons. Cutting westward now only kept them well inside Union territory. Somehow they would have to skulk or fight their way down through the southern part of Kentucky and then probably all the way across Tennessee—a tall order, but one which was just possible of accomplishment.

"I'll do it, suh." Riding into Bardstown was no worse than riding over the rest of this countryside where any moment they might be swept up by the enemy.

It was lucky they had brought rations with them from McKeever's, for they took no more chances of trying for such supplies again. Once more they altered their advance, riding the pikes at night, hiding out by day.

Hills then, and among them Bardstown. Drew borrowed a carbine, stringing a dubiously white strip of shirt tail from its barrel, and flanked by Kirby and Driscoll, a trooper Campbell had appointed, rode slowly up the broad street opening from the pike. Great trees arched overhead, almost as they had across the drive of the McKeever place, and the houses were fine, equal to the best about Lexington.

A carriage pulled to the side, its two feminine occupants leaning forward a little under the tilt of dainty parasols, eyes wide. While their coachman stared open-mouthed at the three dirty, tattered cavalrymen riding with an assumption of ease, though armed, down the middle of the avenue.

"You, suh." It was the coachman who hailed Drew. "You soldier men?"

Drew reined in the black, who this time obeyed without protest. The weary miles had taught the gelding submission if not perfect manners. Transferring his reins to the hand which also steadied the butt of his carbine against his thigh so that his "flag" was well in evidence, Drew swept off his dust-grayed hat and bowed to the ladies in the carriage.

"General Morgan's compliments, ladies," he said, loud enough for his words to carry beyond the vehicle to the townspeople gathering on the walk. "Flag of truce comin' in, ma'am." He spoke directly to the elder of the two in the carriage. "Would you be so kind as to direct me to where I may find the Union commander?"

"You're from John Hunt Morgan, young man?" She shut her parasol with a snap, held it as if she was considering its use as a weapon.

"Yes, ma'am. General Morgan, Confederate Army—"

She sniffed. "You'll find their captain at the inn, probably. Yankees and whiskey apparently have an affinity for one another. So John Morgan's coming to pay us a visit?"

"Maybe, ma'am. And where may I find the inn?"

"Straight ahead," the girl answered. "You really are Morgan's men?"

Kirby did not have a hat to doff, but his bow in the saddle was as graceful as Drew's.

"That's right, ma'am. My, did we know what we'd find in Bardstown now, we'd bin ridin' in right sooner!"

"Suh! ... Louisa!" The elder lady's intimidating glare was divided, but Drew thought that Louisa got more than a half share of it.

"No offense meant, ma'am. It's jus' that ridin' 'bout the way we do an' all, we don't git us a chance to say Howdy to ladies." The Texan's expression was properly contrite; his voice all diffidence.

"The inn, young men, is on down the street. Drive on, Horace!" she ordered the coachman. But as the carriage started, she pointed her parasol at Drew as a teacher might point an admonishing ruler at a pupil. "I hope you'll find what you're looking for, young man. In the way of Yankees...."

"We generally do, ma'am," Kirby commented. "For us Yankees jus' turn up bright an' sassy all over the place."

Drew laughed. "Bright and sassy, then on the run!" For the success of his present mission and all those listening ears he ended that boast in as fervent a tone as he could summon.

"See that you keep them that way!" She enforced that order with a snap of parasol being reopened as the carriage moved from the shade back into the patch of open sunlight.

"That sure was a pretty girl," observed Driscoll as Drew and the Texan wheeled back into line with him. "Wish we could settle down heah for say two or three days. Git some of the dust outta our throats and have a chance to say Howdy to some friendly folks—"

"You'd be more likely sayin' Howdy to a Yankee prison guard if you did that," Drew replied. "Let's find this inn and the garrison commander."

"That's the proper way of layin' it out—the inn an' then business. Yankees an' whiskey go together; that's what she said, ain't it? I maybe don't weah no blue coat regular, but whiskey sounds sorta refreshin', don't it, now?"

"Just so you only think that, Anse, and don't try any tastin'," Drew warned. "We make our big talk to this captain, and then we move out—fast. You boys know the drill?"

"Sure," Driscoll repeated. "We're the big raiders come to gobble up all the blue bellies, 'less they walk out all nice an' peaceful, leavin' their popguns behind 'em for better men to use. I'd say that theah was the inn, Rennie—"

They saw their first Yankees, a blot of blue by the horse trough at the edge of the center square. And Drew, surveying the enemy with a critical and experienced eye, was sure that he was indeed meeting either green troops or militia. They were as wide-eyed in their return stare as the civilians on the streets around.

Kirby chuckled. "Strut it up, roosters," he urged from the corner of his mouth. "Cutthroats, banditti, hoss thieves—jus' downright bad hombres, that's us. They expect us to be on the peck, all horns an' rattles. Don't disappoint 'em none! Their tails is half curled up already, an' they're ready to run if a horny toad yells Boo!"

To the outward eye the three riding leisurely down the middle of the Bardstown street had no interest in the soldiers by the trough. Drew in the middle, the white rag dropping from the barrel of his carbine, brought the black a step or two in advance. Just so had Castleman ridden into Lexington earlier, and that had been at night with a far more wary and dangerous enemy to face. The scout's confidence rose as he watched, without making any show of his surveillance, the uneasy men ahead.

One of them broke away from the group, and ran into the inn.

"Wonder who's roddin' this outfit," Kirby remarked. "That fella's gone to rout him out. Do your talkin' like a short-trigger man, Drew."

They pulled rein in front of the inn and sat their horses facing the door through which the soldier had disappeared. His fellows edged around the trough and stood in a straggling line to front the Confederates.

"You!" Drew caught the eye of the nearest. "Tell your commanding officer General Morgan's flag is here!"

The Yankee was young, almost as young as Boyd, but he had less assurance than Boyd. Now the boy stammered a little as he answered:

"Yes ... yes, sir." Then he added in a rush, "General who, sir?"

"General John Hunt Morgan, Confederate Cavalry, Army of the Tennessee, detached duty!" Drew made that as impressive as he could, whether it was worded correctly according to military protocol or not. It was, he thought with satisfaction, a nicely rounded, important-sounding speech, although a bit short.

"Yes, sir!" The boy started for the door, but he was too late.

The man who erupted from that portal was short and stout, his face a dramatic scarlet above the dark blue of his unbuttoned coat. He stopped short a step or two into the open and stood staring at the three on horseback, that scarlet growing more dusky by the second.

"Who ... are ... you?" His demand was expelled in heavy puffs of breath.

"Flag from General Morgan," Drew repeated. Then to make it quite plain, he added kindly, "General John Hunt Morgan, Confederate Cavalry, Army of the Tennessee, detached duty."

"But, but Morgan was defeated ... at Cynthiana. He was broken—"

Slowly Drew shook his head. "The General has been reported defeated before, suh. No, he's right here outside Bardstown. And I wouldn't rightly say he was broken either, not with a couple of regiments behind him—"

"Couple of regiments!" The man was buttoning his coat, his red jowls sagging a little, almost as if Drew had used the carbine across his unprotected head. "Couple of regiments ... Morgan ..." he repeated dazedly. "Well," sullenly he spoke to Drew, "what does he want?"

"You're a captain," Drew spoke crisply. "You'll return with us to discuss surrender terms with an officer of equal rank!"

"Surrender!" For a moment some of the sag went out of the other.

"Two regiments—an' you have maybe eighty or ninety men." Kirby gazed with critical disparagement at such Union forces as were visible.

"One hundred and twenty-five," the officer repeated mechanically and then glared at the Texan.

"One hundred and twenty-five then." Kirby was willing to be generous. "All ready to hold this heah town. I don't see no artillery neither." He rose in his stirrups to view the immediate scene. "Goin' to fight from house to house maybe—?"

"General Morgan," Drew remarked to the company at large, "is not a patient man. But it's your decision, suh. If you want to make a fight of it." He shrugged.

"No! Well, I'll talk ... listen to your terms anyway. Get my horse!" he roared at the nearest soldier.

They escorted the captain with due solemnity out of Bardstown to meet Campbell, a well-armed guard in evidence strung out on the pike. The Union officer picked up enough assurance to demand to see the General himself, but Campbell's show of surprised hauteur at the request was an expert's weapon in rebuttal; and the other not only subsided but agreed without undue protest to Campbell's statement of terms.

The Union detachment in town were to stack their arms in the square, leaving in addition their rations. They were to withdraw, unarmed, to a field outside and there await the patroling officer who would visit them in due course. Having agreed, the Union captain departed.

Campbell was already signaling the rest of the company out of cover.

"This is where we move fast. You all know what to do."

But much had to be left to chance. Drew and Kirby surrendered their borrowed carbines to the rightful owners and prepared to join the first wave of that quick dash.

"Yahhhh-aww-wha—" There were no words in that, just the war cry which might have torn from an Indian warrior's throat, but which came instead from between Kirby's lips: the famous Yell with all its yip of victory as only an uninhibited Texan could deliver it. Then they were rushing, yelping in an answering chorus, four and five abreast, down the street under the shade of the trees, answered by screams and cries as the walks emptied before them.

Blue ranks broke up ahead, leaving rifles stacked, provisions in knapsacks. And the ragged crew struck at the spoil like a wave, lapping up arms, cartridge boxes, knapsacks. For only moments there was a milling pandemonium in the heart of Bardstown. Then once again that Yell was raised, echoed, and the pound of hoofs made an artillery barrage of sound. Armed, provisioned, and very much the masters of the scene, Morgan's men were heading out of town on the other side, leaving bewilderment behind.

They pushed the pace, knowing that the telegraph wires or the couriers would be spreading the news. Perhaps the reputation of their commander might slow the inevitable pursuit, but it would not deter it entirely. They must put as much distance between themselves and the out-foxed Union garrison as they could. And Campbell continued to point them westward instead of south, since any enemy force would be marching in the other direction to cut them off.

Even if men could stand that dogged pace, driven by determination and fear of capture, horses could not. And through the next two days the inference was very clear: fall behind at your own risk; there will be no waiting for laggards to catch up. Nor any mounts furnished; you must provide your own.

Drew discovered the black gelding an increasing problem, but at least the horse provided transportation, and he tried to save the animal as best he could. Though when it was impossible to unsaddle, when one had to ride—and did—some twenty hours out of twenty-four, there was not much the most experienced horseman could do to relieve his mount.

Drew pulled up beside Kirby as he returned from a flank scout. The Texan had dropped to the rear of the small troop, holding his horse to not much more than a walk. Now and then he glanced to the receding length of the road as if in search of someone.

"Where's Boyd?" Drew had ridden along the full length of the company and nowhere had he seen that blond head.

"Jus' what I'm wonderin'." Kirby came to a complete halt. "I came back a little while ago, and nobody's seen him."

Drew pulled in beside the other. His horse's head hung low as the gelding blew in gusty snorts. He tried to remember when he had seen Boyd last and when he did, that memory was not too encouraging.

"With Hilders ... and Cambridge ..." he said softly.

"Yeah." Kirby's thought seemed to match his. "Hilder's mare is jus' about beat, an' Boyd rides light; that bay he got is holdin' up like a corn-fed stud."

"They were talkin' to him when I went out on point." Drew followed his own line of thought. "And he won't listen to me—"

"It don't foller that because you advise a hombre for his own good, he's goin' to take kindly to your interest in him," the Texan observed. "You tell him Hilders an' Cambridge are wearin' skunk stripes, an' he's apt to claim 'em both as compadres. Suppose he don't come in when we bed down; he coulda jus' cut his picket rope an' drifted, as far as we can prove."

"Not if his bay turns up with one of them on top," Drew replied.

"Them two are of the curly wolf breed." Kirby shifted his newly acquired Enfield. "No tellin' as how they would join up with us again did they make such a switch; might figure as how they could make it better time driftin' on their own."

The Texan had put his own fear into words. Drew pointed the gelding back down the road and booted the animal into a trot. A moment later he heard more drumming hoofs behind him; Kirby was following.

"This ain't your trouble," Drew reminded him.

"No, maybe it ain't. But then, me, I'm jus' a rough string rider from way back, an' this may end in a smoke-up. Odds seem a mite one-sided now—Hilders is easy on the trigger. He won't take kindly to anyone tryin' to hang up his hide for dryin'—"

Drew studied the hoof-churned dust of the road. He could only hold a very slim hope of some trace along its margin. The gelding stumbled and tried to cut pace. Drew hardened his will, holding the animal to the trot. He knew that under saddle and blanket, sores were forming, that soon he would have no choice but a "trade" such as Hilders might be forcing now, though not at the expense of one of his own fellows.

Kirby was reading sign on the other side of the road. His sudden hand signal brought Drew to join him. Hoofprints marked the softer verge.

"Turned off not too long ago," Drew commented.

Kirby nodded toward the brush. They were facing a small woodland into which a thin trace of path led. Good cover for trouble. Looping reins over his arm, Drew walked forward, Colt in hand, using scout tricks to cover the noise of his advance into the green shimmer of the trees.

The trail led ahead without any attempt at concealment. The other two troopers must have tricked Boyd into taking that way; maybe they had even put a revolver on him once they were off the road. It was only too easy for a man to straggle from the company and not be missed until hours and miles later.

"Now, sonny, there ain't no use makin' a big fuss...."

Drew dropped the reins and slipped on.

"You can see for yourself, boy, that m' hoss ain't gonna be able to git much farther. You can nurse him along an' take it easy. Them blue bellies ain't gonna be hard on a nice little boy like you—no, suh, they ain't—even if they find you. We jus' trade fair an' square. No trouble...."

"'Course," another, harsher voice cut in, "if you want to make it rough, well, that's what you'll git! We're takin' that hoss, no matter what!"

"You ain't!" There was a short snap of sound, the cocking of a hand gun.

"Pull that on me, will you!"

"I'll shoot! I'm warnin' you ... touch m' horse, and I'll shoot!" Boyd's voice scaled higher.

Drew ran, his arm up to shield his face from the whip of branches. He came out at a small stream. Boyd was backed against a tree while the two others advanced on him from different directions.

"That's enough!" Drew's Colt was pointed at Hilders. The man's head jerked around. "Get goin'," the scout ordered.

Cambridge blinked stupidly, but Hilders took a step back to catch up the reins of a horse that stood dull-eyed, its head bent, pink foam roping from its muzzle as it breathed in heavy gasps.

"I said—get!" Drew advanced, and Hilders gave ground again, towing the trembling horse.

"Now, we don't want no trouble," Cambridge said hurriedly. "It woulda bin a fair trade.... Sonny, heah, ain't got place in the company anyhow——"

"Get!" Drew's weapon raised a fraction of an inch. Cambridge's protest thickened into a mumble and he went. When both men had disappeared, Drew turned to Boyd.

"Put that away—" he flicked a finger at the other's Colt—"and mount up. We'll have to push to get back to the troop."

He watched the other lead the bay away from the stream side. Kirby was right, the horse was in better condition than most of the others in the company, and sooner or later someone might again try to rank Boyd out of it. There were a good many in that hunted column who would see that in the same light as Hilders and Cambridge did and would say so, with the weight of public opinion to back them. Campbell had set their course for Calhoun—and in that town Boyd and the raiders must definitely part company.



6

Horse Trade

"What's this heah Calhoun like?" Kirby watched Drew loosen the saddle blanket, lifting it from the gelding as gently as he could.

"Not much—" Drew was beginning, then he sucked in his breath and stood staring at the nasty sight he had just uncovered. He slung the blanket to the ground as Boyd came up, leading the bay. It was the younger boy who spoke first.

"You ain't goin' to try to ride him now, Drew!" That protest came spontaneously. Drew thought that Shawnee's end had put the last bit of steel over his feelings, but he had to agree with Boyd now: no one with any humanity could make the gelding carry so much as a blanket over that back, let alone saddle and rider.

"Here!" Roughly, his face flushed, Boyd jerked on the reins of his own mount, bringing the bay sidling toward Drew. "You can take Bruce...."

He stooped, reaching for Drew's saddlebags. "You have to ride scout. I'll walk this one a while. Maybe he can carry me later. I ride light."

Drew shook his head. "Not that light," he commented dryly. "No, I guess this is where I do some tradin'—"

"House-smoke yonder ..." Kirby pointed. They could see the thin trail of smoke rising steadily this windless morning. "Best make it fast—the cap'n is already thinkin' about pointin' up an' headin' out."

Drew loosened his side arms in their holsters. He always hated this business, but it was part of a day's work in the cavalry now. He just hoped that he wouldn't have to do his impressing at gun point. He entrusted saddle and blanket to Boyd, but made the other wait outside the farmyard twenty minutes later as he shepherded the gelding into the enclosure where chickens squawked and ran witlessly and a dog hurled himself to the end of a chain, giving tongue like a hound on a hot scent.

Drew skirted that defender, moving toward the barn. But he was still well away from the half-open door when a woman hurried out, a basket in her hands, her face picturing surprise and apprehension. She stopped short to stare at Drew.

"Who are you—what do you want?" Her two questions ran together in a single breathless sentence. Drew looked beyond her. No one else issued from the barn or came in answer to the dog's warning. He took off his hat.

"I need a horse, ma'am." He said it bluntly, impatiently. After all, how could you make a demand like that more courteous or soft? The very fact that he had been driven to this made him angry.

For a moment she looked at him uncomprehendingly, and then her eyes shifted to the gelding. She came forward a step or two, and there was a blaze of anger in the gaze she directed once more to the man.

"That horse's galled raw!" She accused.

"Don't you think I know it?" he returned abruptly. "That's why I have to have another mount."

A quick step back and she was between him and the door of the barn, holding the basket as a shield between them. It was full of eggs.

"You won't get one here!" she snapped.

"Ma'am"—Drew had his temper under control now—"I don't want to take your horse if you have one. But I'm under orders to keep up with the company. And I'm goin' to do what I have to...."

He dropped the gelding's reins, walked forward, hoping she wouldn't make him push around her. But apparently she read the determination in his face and stood aside, her expression bleak now.

"There's only King in there," she said. "And I wish you the joy of him, you thief!"

King proved to be a stallion, stabled in a box stall. Drew hesitated. The stud might be mean, harder to handle even than the gelding. But it was either taking him or being put afoot. If he could back this one even as far as Calhoun tomorrow—or the next day—he might be able to make a better exchange in town. It would depend on just how hard the stallion was to control.

Making soothing noises, he worked fast to bit and bridle the big chestnut. His experience with the Red Springs stud led him aright now. He came out of the barn leading the horse while the dog, its first incessant clamor stilled, growled menacingly from the end of its chain. The woman had disappeared, maybe into the fields beyond in search of help. Drew departed at a swift trot to where he had left Boyd.

"That's all horse!" Boyd eyed Drew's trade excitedly.

"Too much so, maybe. We'll see." He saddled quickly, glad that so far the chestnut had proved amiable. But how the stud might behave in troop company he had yet to learn. He mounted and waited for any signs of resentment, remembering the woman's warning. King snorted, pawed the dust a bit, but trotted on when Drew urged him.

Kirby whistled from where he rode with the rear guard as they rejoined the company. But Captain Campbell frowned. And King put on a display of fireworks which almost shook Drew out of the saddle, rearing and pawing the air.

"Makes like a horny one on the prod," commented the Texan. "That's stud's a lotta hoss to handle, amigo."

"Too much," the captain echoed Drew's earlier misgivings. "Keep him away from the rest until you're sure he won't start anything!"

But that order fitted in with Drew's usual scouting duties. And when he did bed down for one of the fugitives' limited halts he was careful to stake King away from the improvised picket lines.

Drew was eating a mixture of hardtack and cold bacon, the last of their captured provision from Bardstown, when Driscoll sauntered over to the small mess Kirby, Boyd, and Drew had established without any formal agreement.

"The boys are plannin' 'em a high old time," Driscoll announced.

Kirby's left eyebrow slanted up in quizzical inquiry. Drew chewed energetically and swallowed. It was Boyd who asked, "What do you mean?"

"Calhoun—that's what I mean, sonny." Driscoll squatted on his heels. "They 'low as how they're gonna do a little impressin' in Calhoun."

"The town's not very big," Drew observed. "A couple of stores, a church, maybe a smithy...."

Driscoll snickered. "Oh, the boys ain't particular 'long 'bout now. They won't be too choosy. Only thought I'd tell you fellas, seem' as how you been ridin' scout and ain't maybe heard the plans. If you want to load up, better git into town early. Some of them fast workers from B Company are gittin' set...."

"The cap'n know about this?" asked Kirby.

Driscoll shrugged. "He ain't deaf. But the cap'n also knows as how you can't be too big a gold-lace officer when you're behind the enemy lines with men on the run. We're gonna take Calhoun and take her good!" He grinned at the two veterans. "Jus' like we took Mount Sterlin'."

Kirby was sober. "There was a take theah which warn't no good. Somebody cleaned out the bank, or else I wasn't hearin' too well afterward. I can see some impressin'—stuff an hombre can put in his belly as paddin', an' maybe what he can put on his back. That's fair an' square. The Yankees do it too. But takin' a gold watch or money outta a man's pants—now that's somethin' different again."

Driscoll stood up. "Ain't nobody said anything about gold watches or money or banks," he replied stiffly. "There's stores in Calhoun, and there's men in this heah outfit what needs new shirts or new breeches. And since when have you seen any paymaster ridin' down the pike with his bags full of bills, not that you can use that paper stuff for anythin' like shoppin', anyway!"

"Thanks for the tip," Drew cut in. "We take it kindly."

Driscoll's ruffled feelings appeared soothed. "Jus' thought you boys oughta know. Me, I have in mind gittin' maybe two or three cans of them peaches like we got from the sutler's wagon. Them were prime eatin'. General store might jus' have some. Yankee crackers are right good, too. Say, that theah stud you got, Rennie, how's he workin' out?"

"So far no trouble," Drew remarked. "Only I'm lookin' for a trade—maybe in town."

"Trade? Why ever a trade?"

"We got a couple of river crossin's comin' up ahead," the scout explained. "And one of them is a good big stretch of deep water—you don't go wadin' across the Tennessee. I don't want to beg for trouble, headin' a stud into somethin' as dangerous as that."

Driscoll seemed struck by the wisdom of that precaution. "Now I heard tell," he chimed in eagerly, "as how a mule is a right sure-footed critter for a river crossin'. An' a good ridin' mule could suit a man fine——"

"A mule!" Boyd exploded, outraged. But Drew considered the suggestion calmly.

"I'll keep a lookout in town. May be swappin' for that mule yet, Driscoll. You'll have to pick up my share of peaches if that's the way it's goin' to be."

There were more plans laid for the taking of Calhoun as the hours passed and the harried company plodded or spurred—depending upon the nature of the countryside, the activity of Union garrisons, and their general state of energy at the time—southwest across the length of Kentucky. Days became not collections of hours they could remember one by one afterward, but a series of incidents embedded in a nightmare of hard riding, scanty fare, and constant movement. Not only horses were giving out now; they dropped men along the way. And some—like Cambridge and Hilders—vanished completely, either cut off when they went to "trade" mounts, or deserting the troop in favor of their own plans for survival.

The remaining men burst into Calhoun as a cloud of locusts descending on a field of unprotected vegetation. Drew did not know how much Union sentiment might exist there, but he judged that their actions would not leave too many friends behind them. Jugs had appeared, to be passed eagerly from hand to hand, and the contents of store shelves were swept up and out before the outraged owners could protest.

It had showered that morning, leaving puddles of mud and water in the unpaved streets. And at one place there was a mud fight in progress—laughing, staggering men plastering the stuff over the new clothes they had looted. Drew rode around such a party, the stud's prancing and snorting getting him wide room, to tie up at the hitching rail before the largest store.

A man in his shirt sleeves stood a little to one side watching the excitement in the street. As Drew came up the man glanced at the scout, surveying his shabbiness, and his mouth took on the harsh line of a sneer.

"Want a new suit, soldier?" he demanded. "Just help yourself! You're late in gettin' to it...."

Drew leaned against the wall of the store front. He was so tired that the effort of walking on into that madhouse, where men yelled, grabbed, fought over selections, was too much to face. This was just another part of the never-ending nightmare which had entrapped them ever since they had fled from the bank of the Licking at Cynthiana. Listlessly he watched one trooper snatch a coat from another, drag it on triumphantly over a shirt which was a fringe of tatters. He plucked at the front of his own grimy shirt, and then felt around in the pocket he had so laboriously stitched beneath the belt of his breeches, to bring out one creased and worn bill. Spreading it out, he offered it to the man beside him. To loot an army warehouse was fair play as he saw it. Morgan's command had long depended upon Union commissaries for equipment, clothing, and food. And a horse trade was something forced upon him by expediency. But he still shrank from this kind of foraging.

"A shirt?" he asked wearily.

The man glanced from that crumpled bill to Drew's tired face and then back again. The sneer faded. He reached out, closed the scout's fingers tight over the money.

"That's just wastepaper here, son. Come on!" Catching hold of Drew's sleeve so tightly that the worn calico gave in a rip, he guided the other into the store, drawing him along behind a counter until he reached down into the shadows and came up with a pile of shirts, some flannel, some calico, and one Drew thought was linen.

"These look about your size. Take 'em! You might as well have them. Some of these fellows will just tear them up for the fun of it."

Drew fumbled with the pile, a flannel, the linen, and two calico. He could cram that many into his saddlebags. But the store owner thrust the whole bundle into his arms.

"Go ahead, take 'em all! They ain't goin' to leave 'em, anyway."

"Thanks!" Drew clutched the collection to his chest and edged back along the wall, avoiding a spirited fight now in progress in the center of the store. Mud-spattered men came bursting back, wanting to change their now ruined clothing for fresh. Drew stiff-armed one reeling, singing trooper out of his path and was gone before the drunken man could resent such handling. With the shirts still balled between forearm and chest, he led King away from the store.

"Ovah heah!"

That hail in a familiar voice brought Drew's head around. Kirby waved to him vigorously from a doorway, and the scout obediently rehitched King to another rack, joining the Texan in what proved to be the village barber-shop.

Kirby was stripped to the waist, using a towel freely sopped in a large basin to make his toilet. His face was already scraped clean of beard, and his hair plastered down into better order than Drew had ever seen it, while violent scents of bay rum and fancy tonics fought it out in the small room.

"What you got there?" Boyd looked up from a second basin, a froth of soap hiding most of his face.

"Shirts—" Drew dropped his bundle on a chair. He was staring, appalled, into the stretch of mirror confronting him, unable to believe that the face reflected there was his own. Skinning his hat onto a shelf, he moved purposefully toward the row of basins, ripping off his old shirt as he went.

Where the barber had gone they never did know, but a half hour later they made some sweeping attempts to clean up the mess to which their efforts at personal cleanliness had reduced the shop, pleased once more with what they saw now in the mirror. They had divided the shirts, and while the fit was not perfect, they were satisfied with the windfall. Before he left the shop Kirby swept a half dozen cakes of soap into his haversack.

Boyd was already balancing a bigger sack, full to the top.

"Peaches, molasses, crackers, pickles," he enumerated his treasure trove to Drew. "We got us some real eats."

"Hey, you—Rennie!" As they emerged from the barber-shop Driscoll trotted up. "The cap'n wants to see you. He's on the other side of town—at the smithy."

Boyd and Kirby trailed along as Drew obeyed that summons. They found Campbell giving orders to the smith's volunteer aides, some engaged with the owner of the shop in shoeing the raiders' horses, others making up bundles of shoes to be slung from the saddles as they rode out.

"Rennie"—the captain waved him out of the rush and clamor of the smithy—"I want you to listen to this. You—Hart—come here!" One of the men bundling horseshoes dropped the set he was tying together and came.

"Hart, here, comes from Cadiz. Know where that is?"

Drew closed his eyes for a moment, the better to visualize the map he tried to carry in his head. But Cadiz—he couldn't place the town. "No, suh."

"It's south, close to the Tennessee line and not too far from the big river. There's just one thing which may be important about it; it has a bank and Hart thinks that there are Union Army funds there. We still have a long way to go, and Union currency could help. Only," Campbell spoke with slow emphasis, "I want this understood. We take army funds only. This may just be a rumor, but it is necessary to scout in that direction anyway."

"You want me to find out about the funds and the river crossin' near there?"

"It's up to you, Rennie. Hart's willin' to ride with you."

"I'll go." He thought the bank plan was a wild one, but they did have to have a safe route to the river.

"You'll move out as soon as possible. We'll be on our way as soon as we have these horses shod."

Drew doubted that. What he had seen in the streets suggested that it was not going to be easy to pry most of the company out of Calhoun in a hurry, but that was Campbell's problem. "I'll need couriers," he said aloud. It was an advance scout's privilege to have riders to send back with information.

Campbell hesitated as if he would protest and then agreed. "You have men picked?"

"Kirby and Barrett. Kirby's had scout experience; Barrett knows part of this country and rides light."

"All right, Kirby and Barrett. You ready to ride, Hart?"

The other trooper nodded, picked up a set of extra horseshoes, and went out of the smithy. Campbell had one last word for Drew.

"We'll angle south from here to hit the Cumberland River some ten miles north of Cadiz, Hart knows where. This time of year it ought to be easy crossin'. But the Tennessee—" he shook his head—"that is goin' to be the hard one. Learn all you can about conditions and where it's best to hit that...."

Drew found Hart already mounted, Kirby and Boyd waiting.

"Hart says we're ridin' out," the Texan said. "Goin' to cover the high lines?"

"Scout, yes. South of here. River crossin's comin' up."

"No time for shadin' in this man's war," Kirby observed.

"Shadin'?" Boyd repeated as a question.

"Sittin' nice an' easy under a tree while some other poor hombre prowls around the herd," Kirby translated. "It's a kinda restin' I ain't had much of lately. Nor like to...."

They put Calhoun behind them, and Hart led them cross-country. But at each new turn of the back country roads Drew added another line or two on the map he sketched in on paper which Boyd surprisingly produced from his bulging sack of loot.

The younger boy looked self-conscious as he handed it over. "Thought as how I might want to write a letter."

Drew studied him. "You do that!" He made it an order. There had been no chance to leave Boyd in Calhoun. But there was still Cadiz as a possibility. He did not believe this vague story about Union gold in the bank. And the company might never enter the town in force at all. So that Boyd, left behind, would not attract the unfavorable attention of the authorities.

It began to rain again, and the roads were mire traps. As they struggled on into evening Kirby found a barn which appeared to be out by itself with no house in attendance. The door was wedged open with a drift of undisturbed soil and Boyd, exploring into a ragged straggle of brush in search of a well, reported a house cellar hole. The place must be abandoned and so safe.

"We'll be in Cadiz tomorrow," Hart said.

"An' how do we ride in?" Kirby wanted to know. "Another bearer-of-the-flag stunt?"

"Is Cadiz a Union town?" Drew asked Hart.

The other laughed. "Not much, it ain't. This is tobacco country; you seen that for yourself today. An' there's guerrillas to give the Yankees trouble. They hole up in the Brelsford Caves, six or seven miles outta town. We can ride right in, and there ain't nobody gonna care."

"Nice to know these things ahead'a time," Kirby remarked. "So we ride in—lookin' for what?"

Hart glanced at Drew but remained silent. The scout shrugged. "Information about the rivers and any stray garrison news. You have kin here, Hart?"

"Some." But the other did not elaborate on that.

Drew was thinking about those guerrillas; their presence did not match Hart's story about the Yankee gold in the bank. Such irregulars would have been after that long ago. He didn't know why Hart had pitched Campbell such a tale, but he was dubious about the whole setup now. Better make this a quick trip in—and out—of town.



7

A Mule for a River

For a Confederate patrol, they looked respectable enough as they rode into Cadiz. Though they lacked the uniformity of a Yankee squad, their dark shirts, "impressed" breeches, and good boots gave an impression of a common dress, and Kirby had even acquired a hat.

They slung their captured rifles before entering town and progressed at a quiet amble which suggested good will. But there was no mistaking the fact that they attracted attention, immediately and to some purpose. A small boy, balancing on a fence, put his fingers to his mouth and released a piercing whistle.

King's response to that was vigorous. Rearing, until he stood almost upright on his hind feet, the stallion pawed the air. Drew barely kept his seat. He fought with all his knowledge of horsemanship to bring the stud back to earth and under control. And he could hear Kirby's laugh and Boyd calling out some inarticulate warning or advice.

"Better git that mule—or run down this one's mainspring some," the Texan said when Drew had King again with four feet on the ground, though weaving in a sideways dance.

"You men—what are you doing here?" A horseman looked over the heads of the crowd to the four troopers.

"Passin' through, suh. Leastwise we was, until greeted—" Kirby answered courteously.

Drew assessed the questioner's well-cut riding clothes, his good linen, and fine gloves. The rider was middle-aged, his authority more evident because of that fact. This was either one of the wealthy planters of the district or some important inhabitant of Cadiz. There was a wagon drawing up behind him, a span of well-cared-for mules in harness with a Negro driver.

The mules held Drew's attention. King's reaction to that sudden whistle was a warning. He had no wish to ride such an animal into a picket skirmish. The sleekness of the mules appealed to his desire to rid himself of the unmanageable stud.

Now he edged the sidling King closer to the wagon. The driver watched him with apprehension. Whether he guessed Drew's intention or whether he dreaded the near approach of the stallion was a question which did not bother the scout.

"You there," Drew hailed the driver. "I'll take one of those mules!"

As always, he hated these enforced trades and spoke in a peremptory way, wanting to get the matter finished.

"You, suh—" the solid citizen turned his horse to face the scout—"what gives you the right to take that mule?"

With a visible sigh of relief, the Negro relaxed on the driver's seat, willing to let the other carry on the argument.

"Nothing, except I have to have a mount I can depend upon." Drew did not know why he was explaining, or even why he wanted the mule so acutely right now. Except that he was tired, tired of the days in the saddle, of being on the run, of these small Kentucky towns into which they rode to loot and ride off again. The Yankees in Bardstown had been fair game, and their bluff there had been an adventure. But Calhoun left a sour taste in his mouth, and he didn't like the vague order which had brought him to Cadiz. So his dislike boiled over, to settle into a sullen determination to rid himself of one irritation—this undependable horse.

"Do I assume, suh, that you are part of General Morgan's command?" Sharp blue eyes studied Drew across the well-curried backs of the mules.

"Yes, suh."

The man gave a nod, which might have been for some thought of his own.

"We have heard some rumors of your coming, suh," the other continued. "You, Nelson," he spoke to the Negro, "take this team up to the livery stable and tell Mr. Emory I want Hannibal saddled! Then you bring him back here and give him to this gentleman!"

"Yes, suh. Hannibal—wi' saddle—for this young gentlem'n."

"Hannibal, suh," the man said to Drew, "is a mule, but a remarkable one, riding trained and strong. I think you will find him quite usable. Do I understand we are about to be favored by a visit from General Morgan?"

Drew dismounted. Now he made a business of squinting up at the sun as if to tell time. "Not for a while, suh." He remained cautious; though he guessed that his questioner's sympathies were at least not openly Union.

There was a stir in the gathering crowd. Hart was leaning from his saddle, talking earnestly to two men flanking him on either side.

"May I offer you some refreshment, gentlemen. I am James Pryor, at your service—"

Automatically Drew responded to the manners of Red Springs. "Drew Rennie, suh. Anson Kirby, Boyd Barrett...." He looked around for Hart, only to see the other disappearing into an alley with his two companions from the crowd.

"Suh, that's a right heartenin' offer," Kirby said, smiling. "Trail dust sure does make a man's throat dryer'n an alkali flat!"

"Mark Hale over here has just the answer for that difficulty, gentlemen. If you will accompany me—"

They left the glare of the sunlit street, following their host into a small shop where a quantity of strange smells fought for supremacy. Kirby stared about him puzzled, but his look changed to an expression of pure bafflement and outrage as Pryor gave his order to the smaller man who came from a back room.

"Mark, these gentlemen need some of that good lemonade you make—if you have some cold and ready."

Drew heard Kirby's muffled snort of protest and wanted so badly to laugh that the struggle to choke off that sound was a pain in his chest. Mr. Pryor smiled at them blandly.

"M' boys, nothing better on a really hot day than some of Mark's lemonade. Nothing like it in this part of Kentucky. Ah, that looks like a draft fit for the gods, Mark, it certainly does!"

Hale had bobbed out of his inner room again, shepherding before him a Negro boy who walked with exaggerated caution, balancing a tray on which stood four tall glasses, beaded with visible moisture. There was a sprig of green mint standing sentry in each.

"Drink up, gentlemen." Under Mr. Pryor's commanding eye they each took a glass and a first sip.

But it was good—cool as it went slipping down the throat bearing that blessed chill with it, tart on the tongue, and fresh. Drew had sipped, but now he gulped, and he noted over the rim of his own glass, that Kirby was following his example. Mr. Pryor consumed his portion at a more genteel rate of intake.

"This allays that trail dust of yours, Mr. Kirby?" He inquired with no more than usual solicitude, but there was a faint trace of amusement in his small smile.

Kirby met the challenge promptly. "Ably, suh, ably!" He raised his half-filled glass. "To your very good health, suh. I don't know when I've had me a more satisfyin' drink!"

Pryor bowed. He was still smiling as he glanced at Drew.

"You have business in Cadiz, suh? Beyond that of swapping that firebreather of yours for another mount, I mean? Perhaps I can be of service in some other way...."

Drew cradled his glass in both hands. The condensing moisture made it slippery, but the chill was pleasant to feel.

"Do you have any news about the Cumberland River, suh?" he asked. Pryor might have usable information, and there was no reason to disguise that part of their objective. Short of turning about and fighting their way through about a quarter of the aroused Yankee army, the fugitives did have to cross the Cumberland and the Tennessee, and do both soon.

"The Cumberland, suh, is not apt to give you much trouble." Pryor sipped at his glass with a relish. "If, of course, you contemplate a try at the Tennessee—that will be a different matter. I trust your commander will be amply prepared for difficulties there. But General Morgan is not to be easily caught napping, or so his reputation stands. I wish you the best of luck."

"Is that your horse out there, young man?" the proprietor of the drugstore addressed Drew. "That big stallion?"

Drew put his glass on the counter and spun around. "What's he doin' now?"

"Nothing," Hale returned quickly. "Ransome!" Out of nowhere Hale's servant appeared. "Get the saddlebags from that horse."

Surprised at this highhanded demand for his property, Drew waited for enlightenment. When Ransome returned with the bags, Hale took them, moved quickly to a cabinet, and unlocked it. By handfulls he took small boxes from the shelves inside, added some paper packets, and then buckled the straps tightly over the new bulge.

"I understand," he said in his dry, precise voice, "there is a pressing need for quinine, morphine, and the like in the South?"

Drew could only nod as Hale held out the bags.

"Give this to your surgeon, young man, with my compliments. There is little enough we can do, but this is something."

Drew stammered his thanks, knowing that those boxes and packets crammed into his bags meant a fortune to a blockade runner, but far more to men in the improvised hospitals behind the gray lines. Hale waved away Drew's thanks, adding only a last warning: "Keep your bags dry if you contemplate a river crossing! I would like to make sure that those drugs do reach the right hands intact."

"Rennie!" Hart hailed him from the door. "There's a boy here with a mule; he says it's for you."

Pryor put down his glass. "It's Hannibal. I think you will find him acceptable, suh. An even-tempered animal for the most part, and the surest-footed one I have ever ridden."

"Then you do ride him?" Boyd spoke for the first time.

"Naturally he has been ridden—by me. I would not offer him otherwise, suh!" Pryor's flash of indignation was quick. "Hannibal's dam was Dido, a fine trotting mare. He's an excellent mount."

The mule stood in the street, ears slightly forward, eyeing King warily. He was a big animal, groomed until his gray coat shone under the sun, wearing a well rubbed and oiled saddle and trappings. As Drew approached he lowered his head, sniffing inquiringly at the scout.

"Your new master, Hannibal," Pryor addressed the animal with the gravity of one making a formal introduction. "You are about to be mustered into the cavalry."

Hannibal appeared to consider this and then shook his big head up and down in a vigorous nod. Boyd laughed and Kirby offered vocal encouragement.

"Mount up an' see if you have to go smoothin' out any humps."

"If you're goin' to ride that critter, git on!" Hart called. His tone expressed urgency as if he had learned something in town which should send them out of Cadiz in a hurry.

Drew's previous experience with mules had not been as a rider. He had heard plenty about their sure-footedness, their ability to keep going as pack animals and wagon teams when horses gave out, their intelligence, as well as that stubbornness which lay on the darker side of the scales. He advanced on Hannibal now a little distrustfully, settling into the saddle on the animal's back with the care of one expecting some unpleasant reaction. But Hannibal merely swung his head about as if to make sure by sight, as well as pressure of weight on his back, that his rider was safely aloft.

Relaxing, Drew saluted Pryor. "My thanks to you, suh."

"Think nothing of it, young man. Luck to you—all of you."

"That we can use, suh," Kirby returned. "Adios...."

Hart's impatience was so patent that Drew had only hasty thanks for Hale before the trooper had them on their way out of town. When they were at a trot Kirby joined their guide.

"How come you workin' on your critter's rump with a double of rope? Git sight of some blue belly hangin' out to dry-gulch us?"

"We ain't too welcome hereabouts." Hart did look worried, and Drew was alert.

"Yankees?" he asked.

Hart shook his head. "Just some of the boys; they don't want no attention pulled this way, not right now."

The bank money—and the guerrillas. Yes, holding up the Cadiz bank if and when any gold reached there, would appeal to the local irregulars, who might be so irregular as to be on the cold side of the law, even in wartime with the enemy their victim. Drew fitted one piece to another and thought he could guess the full pattern.

Kirby looked from one to the other. Boyd was completely at a loss. A moment later the Texan spoke again.

"Me, I'm never one to argue with local talent, specially if they wear their Colts low and loose. Doin' that is apt to make a man wolf meat. Wheah to now—this heah river?"

Drew nodded. The Cumberland must be scouted. And, after that, the more formidable barrier of the Tennessee. He had not needed Pryor's warning about the latter. Ever since they had left Bardstown and knew they were headed for that barrier, Drew had been carrying worry at the back of his mind.

But Pryor was also right about the Cumberland. Hart agreed to ride back to the company with the information to direct them to the best crossing. While Drew, Kirby, and Boyd went on to the last barrier between them and eventual escape southwest.

Here the Tennessee was a flood, a narrow lake more than a river. As they traveled its eastern bank Boyd halted now and again to study the waste of water dubiously.

"It's wide," he said in a subdued voice. Kirby spat accurately at a leaf drifting just below.

"Need us some fish fixin's heah," he agreed. "You swim?" he asked the other two.

There had been ponds at home where both of them in childhood had paddled about with most of the young male populations of Red Springs and Oak Hill. But whether they could trust that somewhat limited skill to get them over this flood was another matter.

"Some." Boyd appeared to have discovered caution.

"Me, I'm not sayin' yet," Kirby commented. "Splashin' 'round some in a little-bitty wadin' pool, an' gittin' out in this, don't balance none. Ain't every hoss takes kindly to water, neither. I'd say we'd better see what's the chances of knockin' together a raft or somethin'. 'Less we can find us a boat."

But boats were not to be found, unless they were willing to risk discovery by trying to cross near a well-settled district. And when Captain Campbell joined them that afternoon he insisted on the need of speed over a longer reconnaissance.

"The Yankees are closing in," he told the trio by the river. "If we try to cross at a town, they'll have a point to center on. Rafts, yes, we can try to build rafts—have to ferry over the men who can't swim, and our gear. This is the time we must push—fast."

The remote section of bank which Drew had chosen became a scene of activity as the company came in—a tight bunch—not long after Campbell. The stragglers came later, pushing beat-out horses, one or two riding double. They had no tools other than bowie knives, and their attempts at raft-building were not only awkward but in the most cases futile. When they did have a mat which would stick together after a fashion, they were determined to put it to the test at once.

None of them had much practice in getting horses over such a wide body of water, and there were a great many freely voiced suggestions concerning the best methods.

Kirby stood watching the first attempt, his face blank of expression, a sign Drew had come to recognize as the Texan's withdrawal from a situation or action of which he did not approve. There were five men squeezed together on the flimsy-looking raft and they had strung out their mounts in a line, the head of one horse linked by leading rope to the tail of the one before him.

"You don't think it's goin' to work?" Drew asked Kirby.

The Texan shrugged. "Maybe, only hosses don't think like men. An' a lotta hosses don't take kindly to gittin' wheah theah ain't no footin'. Me, I want to see a little more, 'fore I roll out—"

Kirby's misgivings were amply justified. For that first voyage was doomed to a tragic and speedy end. The second horse in line, losing footing as the river bed fell away beneath him, reared in fright, caught his forefeet over the rope linking him to his fellow, and so jerked his head underwater by his own frenzied struggles. Before the men on the wildly dipping raft were able to cut the now fright-maddened animals loose, three in that string had drowned themselves by their uncontrolled plunges, and the others were being dragged under.

Boyd dived from the upper bank before Drew could stop him. It was madness to go anywhere near the struggling horses. But somehow Boyd's blond head broke water at the side of the last gasping animal. He took a grip on the water-logged mane, his body bobbing up and down with the jerks of the horse's forequarters, until he had sawed through the lead cord and was able to start the mount back toward the shore, swimming beside him.

Drew was waiting with Kirby to give Boyd a hand up the bank.

"You could have been pulled under!"

Boyd was grinning. "But I wasn't. And the horse's all right, too." He patted the wet haunch of the shivering animal. "That was bad—they pulled each other down."

It was a disheartening beginning. But as the hours slipped by they had better success. One horse, two, three could be towed on separate ropes behind the raft. And in the morning there was a cockleshell of a boat oared in by one of the men who had found it downriver.

They had ferried and crossed well into the dusk of the evening. And at the first dawn they were at it again. Drew tried to remember how many times he had made that trip, swimming or rowing, always with some mount as his special charge. More than half the company had sworn they could not swim, and so the burden of the transfer fell upon their fellows.

"Rennie—" That was Campbell climbing up from the raft after another weary passage across. "There's trouble on the other side. You've been using that mule of yours to get some of the horses over, haven't you?"

Drew was so tired that words were too much trouble to shape. He nodded dully. Pryor had been right about Hannibal. The big mule had not only taken his own passage across the Tennessee as a matter-of-course proceeding, but had shouldered and urged along three horses as he went. And twice since then Drew had taken him back and forth to bring in skittish mounts causing trouble.

"That horse of mine's running wild; he broke out of the water twice." The captain caught at Drew's bare arm so hard his nails cut. "Think you could get him over with the mule's help?"

Drew wavered a little as he walked slowly to where he had picketed Hannibal after their last trip. He was tired, and although he had eaten earlier that morning, he was hungry again. It was warm and the sun was climbing, but the air felt chill against his naked body and he shivered. The one thing they were all getting out of this river business, Drew decided, were much-needed baths.

Kirby, his body white save for tanned face and throat, sun-darkened hands and wrists, crouched on the raft as Drew brought Hannibal down to that unwieldy craft.

"Tryin' for the cap'n's hoss?"

"What's wrong with it?" Drew helped the Texan push off.

"Reaches no bottom, an' then it plain warps its backbone tryin' to paw down the sky. Maybe that mule can git some sense into the loco critter. But I'm not buyin' no chips on his doin' it."

Drew located Campbell's horse, a rangy, good-looking gray which reminded him a little of the colt he had seen at Red Springs, snorting and trotting back and forth along the path they had worn on the banks during their efforts of the past twenty-four hours. One of the rear guard held its lead rope and kept as far from the skittish animal as he could.

"He's plumb mean," the guardian informed Drew. "When he jumps, get out from under—quick!"

Yet when Drew, mounted on Hannibal now, brought the horse down to the water's edge, the horse appeared to go willingly enough. The scout tossed the lead rope to Kirby, waiting until the raft pushed off with its load of men and fringe of horses, then took to the river beside Campbell's horse. When they reached the deeper section he saw the gray go into action.

Rearing, the horse appeared about to try to climb onto the raft. And the man holding its lead rope dropped it quickly. Drew, swimming, one hand on Hannibal's powerful shoulder, tried to guide the mule toward the horse that was still splashing up and down in a rocking-horse movement. But the mule veered suddenly, and Drew saw those threatening hoofs loom over his own head. He pushed away frantically, but too late to miss a numbing blow as one hoof grazed his shoulder.

Somehow, with his other hand outflung, he caught Hannibal's rope tail and held on with all the strength he had left, while the water washed in and out of a long raw gouge in the skin and muscles of his upper arm.



8

Happy Birthday, Soldier!

"No water here either." Boyd climbed up the bank of what might once have been a promising stream. Carrying three canteens, he ran the tip of his tongue over his lips unhappily. "It sure is hot!"

They had turned off the road, which was now filled with men, horses, men, artillery, and men, all slogging purposefully forward. They composed an army roused out before daylight, on the move toward another army holed in behind a breastworks and waiting. And over all, the exhausting blanket of mid-July heat which pressed to squeeze all the vital juices out of both man and animal.

Drew touched his aching arm soothingly. It still hurt, although the rawness had healed during the weeks between that turbulent crossing of the Tennessee and this morning in Mississippi as they moved at the Union position on the ridge above the abandoned ghost town of Harrisburg. The remnant of Morgan fugitives, some eighty strong, had fallen in with General Bedford Forrest's ranging scouts at Corinth, and had ridden still farther southward to join his main army just on the eve of what promised to be a big battle.

"Hot!" echoed Kirby. "A man could git hisself killed today an' never know no difference."

They were reluctant to re-enter the stream progressing along the road. The dust was ankle-deep there, choking thick when stirred by feet and hoof to a powdery cloud. In contrast, there were no clouds in the sky, and the sun promised to be a ball of brass very soon.

Yesterday had been as punishing. Men wilted in the road, overcome by heat and lack of water. If there ever had been any moisture in this country, it had long ago been boiled away. The very leaves were brittle and grayish-looking where they weren't inches deep in dust.

As of last night, the Morgan men were an addition to Crossland's Kentuckians under General Buford. The speech of the blue grass was familiar, but nothing yet had made them a part of this new army with which they marched.

Drew reached for one of the canteens. His worry over Boyd, dulled by the passing of time, stirred sluggishly. The other had kept up the grueling pace which had brought the fugitives across half of Kentucky, all of Tennessee, and into this new eddy of war, making no complaint after his first harsh introduction to action—which might be in part an adventure, but which was mostly something to be endured—with the dogged stubbornness of a seasoned veteran. And Boyd had manifestly toughened in that process. After Drew's mishap in the river, Boyd had accepted responsibility, helping to keep the scout in the saddle and riding, even when Drew had been bemused by a day or two of fever, unaware of either their enforced pace or their destination.

No, somewhere along the line of retreat Drew had stopped worrying about Boyd. And now, with the youngster already appointed horse holder for the day's battle, he need not think of him engulfed in action. Though any fighting future was decided mainly by the capricious chance which struck one man down and allowed his neighbor to march on unscathed.

"You men—over there—close up!" A officer, hardly to be distinguished from the men he rode among, waved them back to the column. Then they were dismounting. As Drew handed Hannibal over to Boyd's care, he was glad again that the other was safely behind the battle line moving up in the thin woods.

During the night the enemy had thrown together the breastworks on the ridge, weaving together axed trees, timbers torn out of the abandoned houses of the village—anything the Union leader could commandeer for such use. And between that improvised fortification and the cover in which the Confederates now waited was a section of open ground, varying in width with the wanderings of a now dry river. Where the Kentuckians were stationed, there must have stretched about three hundred yards of that open, Drew estimated, and the woods bordering it on this side were so thin that any charge would take them into plain sight for five hundred yards of approach.

Fieldpieces brought into line on the woods side, hidden above by the breastworks, opened up in a dull pom-pom duel. Drew saw a shell strike earth not far away, bounce twice, still intact, and roll on toward the Confederate lines.

The zip-zip of the Minies had not yet begun. And this waiting was the hardest part of all. Drew tried to pin all his powers of concentration on a study of the ground immediately before him, the slope up which they would have to win in order to have it out with the now hidden enemy. He made himself calculate just which path to take when the orders to charge came. Although his arm prevented his using a carbine or rifle, his two Colts were loaded, and one was in his hand. He glanced around.

Kirby? There was a Morgan trooper next—Drew tried to remember his name. Laswell ... Townstead ... no, Clinton! Tom Clinton. He'd done picket duty with Drew. And beyond Clinton—there was Kirby, his lips pulled tight in what might have been a grin, but which Drew thought was not. Then ... Boyd! But Boyd was back with the horses; he had to be!

Drew edged forward a little, trying to see better. If it were Boyd, he had to wrench him out of that line and get the boy back. A hot emotion close to panic boiled up in Drew.

Somewhere, through the pound of the artillery, a bugle blared. And Drew's muscles obeyed that call, even as he still tried to see who was fourth in line from him.

Slowly at first, they were on the move. The sun was up, shining directly into their faces. But in spite of the glare, they could still see the Union works and the flash of guns along it. They were moving faster, coming to a trot. Officers shouted here and there, trying to slow that steady advance—why?

Then, drowning out the bugles, the mutter and roar of the artillery, came the Yell. Their shambling trot quickened. Men were running now, forming a great wave to lick up at the breastworks. Men in that line did not know—or care—that they were moving without the promised support on right and left; they did not hear the disturbed orders of the officers still striving to slow them, to wrench them back into a battle plan already too broken to mend. All they cared about now was the field clear for running, the weapons in their hands, the enemy waiting under the hot morning sun.

Drew never remembered afterward that splendid useless charge except as chaos. He could not have told just when they were caught in a murderous crossfire which poured canister at their undefended flanks. A man went down before him, stumbling. The scout caught his foot against the writhing body, pitched head forward, and struck on his bad arm. For a moment or two the stabbing pain of that made the world red and black. Then Drew was up on one knee again, just in time to realize foggily that the Yankees were ripping at their flanks, that their charge was pocketed by lead and steel, being wiped out. He steadied his gun hand on the crook of his injured arm, tried to find some target, then fired feverishly without one, the gun's recoil sending shivers of pain through his whole shoulder and side.

The first wave of men had great gaps torn in its length. But those remaining on their feet still ran up the slope, screaming their defiance. A handful reached the breastworks. Drew saw one man by some strange fortune scramble to the top of that timber wall, stand balanced for a moment in triumph to take aim at a target below as if he himself were invulnerable, and then plunge, as might a diver cleaving a pool, out of sight on the other side.

Men faltered, the fire was breaking them, crumpling up the lines. All the Union might was concentrated in a lead-and-canister hail on the remnants of the brigade, making of the slope a holocaust in which nothing human could continue to advance.

But new lines of gray-brown came steadily from the woodland, racing, yelling, steadfast in their determination to storm that barricade and pluck out the Yankees with their hands. They were wild men, with no thought of personal safety. A color bearer went down. His standard was seized by his right rank man before its red folds hit the churned, stained ground, the soldier flinging aside his rifle to take tight grip on the pole. The line came on at a run. Now broken squads of Kentuckians re-formed; a battered lacework of what had been companies, regiments, joined the newcomers.

Drew was on his feet. Where Kirby or any others of the small Morgan contingent had vanished—whether Boyd had been with them—he did not know. He jammed his now empty Colt into its holster, drew its twin, still not wholly aware that the breastworks were too far away for small arms' fire to have any effect.

Now the whole world was no larger than that stretch of open ground and the breastworks, the men in blue behind them. Only the flanking fire still withered the gray lines, curling them up as the sun had withered and curled the leaves on the shrubs by the dried stream bed. This was walking stiff-legged through a bath of fire—sun fire, lead-death fire—with no end except the hope of reaching the ridge top and the fight waiting there.

But they could not reach that wall—except singly, or in twos and threes, then only to fall. And the waves of men no longer broke from the woods to lap up and recede sullenly down the slope. Out of nowhere, just as they fell back to the first fringe of trees, came an officer on a tall gray horse. His coat was gone, he rode in his shirt sleeves, and a bullet-torn tatter waved from one wide shoulder. Above prominent cheekbones, his eyes were hot and bright, his clipped beard pointed sharply from a jaw which must be grimly set, his face was flushed, and his energy and will was like a cloud to engulf the disheartened men as he bore down upon them.

His galloping course threaded through the shattered groups of Kentuckians, men fast disintegrating into a mob as the realization of their failure on the slope began to strike home—no longer a portion of an army believing in itself. But, sighting him, they followed his route with a rising wave of cheers—cheers which even though they came from dry throats rose in force and violence to that inarticulate Yell which had raised them past all fear up the hill.

From his saddle, the officer leaned to grab at a standard, whirling the flag aloft and around his head so that its scarlet length, crossed with the starred blue bands, made a tossing splotch of color, to hold and draw men's eyes. And now he was shouting, too, somehow his words carrying through the uproar in the woods.

"Rally! Rally on colors!"

"Forrest!" A man beside Drew whooped, threw his hat into the air. "The old man's here! Forrest!"

They were pulled together about that rider and his waving standard. Lines tightened, death-made gaps closed. They steadied, again a fighting command and not a crowd of men facing defeat. And having welded that force, Forrest did not demand a second charge. He was furiously angry—not with them, Drew sensed—but with someone or something beyond the men crowding about him. It was not until afterward that rumor seeped out through the ranks; it had not been Forrest's kind of battle, not his plan. And he now had five hundred empty saddles to weight the scales after a battle which was not his.

Drew leaned against a bullet-clipped tree. Men were at work with some of the same will as had taken them to attack, building a barricade of their own, expecting a counterthrust from the enemy. He wiped his sweaty face with the back of his hand. His throat was one long dry ache; nowhere had he seen a familiar face.

Somewhere among this collection of broken units and scrambled companies of survivors he must find his own. He stood away from the tree, fighting thirst, weariness, and the shaking reaction from the past few hours, to move through the badly mauled force, afraid to allow himself to think what—or who—might still lie out on the ridge under the white heat of the sun.

"Rennie!"

Drew rounded a fieldpiece which had been manhandled off the firing line, one wheel shattered. He steadied himself against its caisson and turned his head with caution, fearing to be downed by the vertigo which seemed to strike in waves ever since he had retreated to the cover of the woods. He wanted to find the horse lines, to make sure that he had not seen Boyd on the field just before the bugle had lifted them all into that abortive charge.

It was Driscoll who hailed him. He had a red-stained rag tied about his forearm and carried his hand tucked into the half-open front of his shirt. Drew walked toward him slowly, feeling oddly detached. He noted that the trooper's weathered face had a greenish shade, that his mouth was working as if he were trying to shape soundless words.

"Where're the rest?" Drew asked.

Driscoll's good hand motioned to the left. "Four ... five ... some there. Standish—he got it with a shell—no head ... not any more—" He gave a sound like a giggle, and then his hand went hastily to his mouth as he retched dryly.

Drew caught the other's shoulder, shaking him.

"The others!" he demanded more loudly, trying to pierce the curtain of shock to Driscoll's thinking mind.

"Four ... five ... some—" Driscoll repeated. "Standish, he's dead. Did I tell you about Standish? A shell came along and—"

"Yes, you told me about Standish. Now show me where the others are!" Still keeping his shoulder grip, Drew edged Driscoll about until the trooper was pointed in the general direction to which he had gestured. Now Drew gave the man a push and followed.

"Rennie!" That was Captain Campbell. He was kneeling by a man on the ground, a canteen in his hand.

Drew lurched forward. He was so sure that that inert casualty was Boyd, and that Boyd was dead.

"Boyd—" he murmured stupidly, refusing to believe his eyes. The man lying there had a brush of grayish beard on his chin, a mat of hair which moved up and down as he breathed in heavy, panting gasps.

"Boyd?" This time the scout made a question of it.

One of the men in that little group moved. "He got it—out there."

Drew shifted his weight. He felt as if he were striving to move a body as heavy and as inert as that of an unconscious man. It took so long even to raise his hand. Before he could question the trooper further, another was before him.

Kirby, his powder-blackened face only inches away from that of the man he had seized by a handful of shirt front, demanded: "How do you know?"

The man pulled back but not out of Kirby's clutch. "He was right beside me. Went down on the slope before we fell back—"

So—Drew's thinking process was as slow as his weary body—he had been right back there on the field! Boyd had been in the first line, and he was still out there.

Again, Drew made one of those careful turns to keep his unsteadiness under control. If Boyd was out there, he must be brought back—now! Hands closed on Drew's shoulders, jerking him back so that he collided with another body, and was held pinned against his captor.

"You can't go theah now!" Kirby spoke so closely to his ear that the words were a roaring in his head. But they did not make sense. Drew tried to wrench loose of that hold, the pain in his half-healed arm answering. Then there was a period he could not account for at all, and suddenly the sun was fading and it was evening. Somebody pushed a canteen into his hand, then lifted both hand and canteen for him so that he could drink some liquid which was not clear water but thick and brackish, evil-tasting, but which moistened his dry mouth and swollen tongue.

Through the gathering dusk he could see distant splotches of red and yellow—were they fires? And shells screamed somewhere. Drew held his head between his hands and cowered under that beat of noise which combined with the pulsation of pain just over his eyes. Men were moving around him, and horses. He heard tags of speech, but none of them were intelligible.

Was the army pulling out? Drew tried to think coherently. He had something to do. It was important! Not here—where? The boom of the field artillery, the flickering of those fires, they confused him, making it difficult to sort out his memories.

Again, a canteen appeared before him, but now he pushed it petulantly aside. He didn't want a drink; he wanted to think—to recall what it was he had to do.

"Drew—!" There was a figure, outlined in part by one of those fires, squatting beside him. "Can you ride?"

Ride? Where? Why? He had a mule, didn't he? Back in the horse lines. Boyd—he had left the mule with Boyd. Boyd! Now he knew what had to be done!

He moved away from the outstretched hand of the man beside him, got to his feet, saw the blot of a mount the other was holding. And he caught at reins, dragged them from the other's hand before he could resist.

"Boyd!" He didn't know whether he called that name aloud, or whether it was one with the beat in his head. Boyd was out on that littered field, and Drew was going to bring him in.

Towing the half-seen animal by the reins, Drew started for the fires and the boom of the guns.

"All right!" The words came to him hollowly. "But not that way, you're loco! This way! The Yankees are burnin' up what's left of the town; that ain't the battlefield!"

Drew was ready to resist, but now his own eyes confirmed that. Fire was raging among the few remaining buildings of the ghost town, and shells were striking at targets pinned in that light, shells from Confederate batteries, taking sullen return payment for that disastrous July day.

A lantern bobbed by his side, swinging to the tread of the man carrying it. And, as they turned away from the inferno which was consuming Harrisburg, Drew saw other such lights in the night, threading along the slope. This was the heartbreaking search, among the dead, for the living, who might yet be brought back to the agony of the field hospitals. He was not the only one hunting through the human wreckage tonight.

"I've talked to Johnson," Kirby said. "It'll be like huntin' for a steer in the big brush, but we can only try."

They could only try ... Drew thought he was hardened to sights, sounds. He had helped bring wounded away from other fields, but somehow this was different. Yet, oddly enough, the thought that Boyd could be—must be—lying somewhere on that slope stiffened Drew, quickened his muscles back into obedience, kept him going at a steady pace as he led Hannibal carefully through the tangle of the dead. Twice they found and freed the still living, saw them carried away by search parties. And they were working their way closer to the breastworks.

"Ho—there—Johnny!"

The call came out of the dark, out of the wall hiding the Yankee forces.

Drew straightened from a sickening closer look at three who had fallen together.

"Johnny!" The call was louder, rising over the din from the burning town. "One, one of yours—he's been callin' out some ... to your left now."

Kirby held up the lantern. The circle of light spread, catching on a spurred boot. That tiny glint of metal moved, or was it the booted foot which had twitched?

Drew strode forward as Kirby swung the lantern in a wider arc. The man on the ground lay on his back, his hands moving feebly to tear at the already rent shirt across his chest. There was a congealed mass of blood on one leg just above the boot top. Drew knew that flushed and swollen face in spite of its distortion; they had found what they had been searching for.

Kirby pulled those frantic hands away from the strips of calico, the scratched flesh beneath, but there was no wound there. The leg injury Drew learned by quick examination was not too bad a one. And they could discover no other hurt; only the delirium, the flushed face, and the fast breathing suggested worse trouble.

"Sun, maybe." Kirby transferred his hold to the rolling head, vising it still between his hands while Drew dripped a scanty stream of the unpalatable water from the Texan's canteen onto Boyd's crusted, gaping lips.

"I'll mount Hannibal. You hold him!" Drew said. "He can't stay in the saddle by himself."

Somehow they managed. Boyd's head, still rolling back and forth, moved now against Drew's sound shoulder. Kirby steadied his trailing legs, then went ahead with the lantern. Before they moved off, Drew turned his head to the breastworks.

"Thanks, Yankee!" He called as loudly and clearly as his thirst-dried throat allowed. There was no answer from the hidden picket or sentry—if he were still there. Then Hannibal paced down the slope.

"The Calhoun place?" Kirby asked.

Hannibal stumbled, and Boyd cried out, the cry becoming a moan.

"Yes. Anse ..." Drew added dully, "do you know ... this was his birthday—today. I just remembered."

Sixteen today.... Maybe somewhere he could find the surgeon to whom last night he had turned over the drugs in his saddlebags. The doctor's gratitude had been incredulous then. But that was before the battle, before a red tide of broken men had flowed into the dressing station at the Calhoun house. The leg wound was not too bad, but the sun had affected the boy who had lain in its full glare most of the day. He must have help.

The saddlebags of drugs, Boyd needing help—one should balance the other. Those facts seesawed back and forth in Drew's aching head, and he held his muttering burden close as Kirby found them a path away from the rending guns and the blaze of the fires.



9

One More River To Cross

"The weather is sure agin this heah war. A man's either frizzled clean outta his saddle by the heat—or else his hoss's belly's deep in the mud an' he gits him a gully-washer down the back of his neck! Me—I'm a West Texas boy, an' down theah we have lizard-fryin' days an' twisters that are regular hell winds, and northers that'll freeze you solid in one little puff-off. But then all us boys was raised on rattlesnakes, wildcats, an' cactus juice—we're kinda hardened to such. Only I ain't seen as how this half of the country is much better. Maybe we shouldn't have switched our range—"

Drew grinned at Kirby's stream of whispered comment and complaint as they wriggled their way forward through brush to look down on a Union blockhouse and stockade guarding a railroad trestle.

"Weather don't favor either side. The Yankees have it just as bad, don't they?"

The Texan made a snake's noiseless progress to come even with his companion's vantage point.

"Sure, but then they should ... they ought to pay up somehow for huntin' their hosses on somebody else's range. We'd be right peaceable was they to throw their hoofs outta heah. My, my, lookit them millin' round down theah. Jus' like a bunch of ants, ain't they? Had us one of Cap'n Morton's bull pups now, we could throw us a few shells as would make that nest boil right over into the gully!"

"We'll do something when the General gets here," Drew promised.

Kirby nodded. "Yes, an' this heah General Forrest, too. He sure can ramrod a top outfit. Jus' prances round the country so that the poor little blue bellies don't know when he's goin' to pop outta some bush, makin' war talk at 'em. You know, the kid's gonna be hoppin' to think he missed this heah show—"

"At least we know where he is and what he's doin'."

Kirby propped his chin on his forearm. "Jus' 'bout now he's sittin' down at the table back theah in Meridian with a sight of fancy grub lookin' back at him. How long you think he's gonna take to bein' corraled that way?"

"General Buford gave him strict orders personally—"

"Nice to have a general take an interest in you," Kirby commented. "You Kaintuck boys, you're scattered all through this heah army. Want to stay with Boyd 'cause he's ailin', so you jus' find you a general from your home state an' talk yourself into a transfer—"

"Notice you wanted me to talk you into one, too."

"Well, Missouri, Mississippi, an' Tennessee are a sight nearer Texas an' home than Virginia. Anyway, theah warn't much left of our old outfit, an' this heah Forrest is headin' up a sassy bunch. So I'm glad you did find you a general to sling some weight an' git us into his scouts jus' 'cause he knew your grandpappy. Kaintucks stick together...."

There was a second of silence through which they could both hear the faint sounds of life from the stockade.

"M' father was a Texan," Drew said suddenly.

"Now that's a right interestin' observation," Kirby remarked. "Heah I was all the time thinkin' you was one of these heah fast-ridin', fine-livin' gentlemen what was givin' some tone to the army. Not jus' 'nother range drifter from the big spaces. What part of Texas you from—Brazos?"

"Oh, I wasn't born there. You had a war down that way, remember?"

"You mean when Santa Anna came trottin' in with his tail high, thinkin' as how he could talk harsh to some of us Tejanos?"

"No, later than that—when some of us went down to talk harsh in Mexico."

"Sure. Only I don't recollect that theah powder-burnin' contest, m'self. M'pa went ... got him these heah fancy hoss ticklers theah." Kirby moved his hand toward the spurs he had taken off and tucked into his shirt for safekeeping to muffle the jingle while they were on scout. "Took 'em away from a Mex officer, personal. Me, I was too young to draw fightin' wages in that theah dust-up."