ne newspaper, but with that
sort of patriotism which grows among mountains and clings to its barren
hillsides as if they were the greenest spots in the universe. Among this
simple people Marshall was scattering firebrands. Stump-orators were
blazing away at every cross-road, lighting a fire which threatened to
sweep Kentucky from the Union. That done,--so early in the
war,--dissolution might have followed. To the Ohio canal-boy was
committed the task of extinguishing this conflagration. It was a
difficult task, one which, with the means at command, would have
appalled any man not made equal to it by early struggles with hardship
and poverty, and entire trust in the Providence that guards his country.

The means at command were twenty-five hundred men, divided into two
bodies, and separated by a hundred miles of mountain country. This
country was infested with guerrillas, and occupied by a disloyal people.
The sending of dispatches across it was next to impossible; but
communication being opened, and the two columns set in motion, there was
danger that they would be fallen on and beaten in detail before they
could form a junction. This was the great danger. What remained--the
beating of five thousand Rebels, posted behind intrenchments, by half
their number of Yankees, operating in the open field--seemed to the
young Colonel less difficult of accomplishment.

Evidently, the first thing to be done was to find a trustworthy
messenger to convey dispatches between the two halves of the Union army.
To this end, the Yankee commander applied to the Colonel of the
Fourteenth Kentucky.

"Have you a man," he asked, "who will die, rather than fail or betray
us?"

The Kentuckian reflected a moment, then answered: "I think I have,--John
Jordan, from the head of Baine."[B]

Jordan was sent for. He was a tall, gaunt, sallow man of about thirty,
with small gray eyes, a fine, falsetto voice, pitched in the minor key,
and his speech the rude dialect of the mountains. His face had as many
expressions as could be found in a regiment, and he seemed a strange
combination of cunning, simplicity, undaunted courage, and undoubting
faith; yet, though he might pass for a simpleton, he talked a quaint
sort of wisdom which ought to have given him to history.

The young Colonel sounded him thoroughly; for the fate of the little
army might depend on his fidelity. The man's soul was as clear as
crystal, and in ten minutes the Yankee saw through