The young officers with their horses walked back and forth a long time,
while Grant and Sheridan talked. Dick, surprised that Grant had left the
trenches before Petersburg and had come so far to meet his lieutenant,
felt that the meeting must be momentous. But it was even more crowded
with the beginnings of great events than he thought. Grant, as he wrote
long afterward, had come prepared with a plan of campaign for Sheridan,
but, as he wrote, "seeing that he was so clear and so positive in his
views I said nothing about this and did not take it out of my pocket."
It was a quality of Grant's greatness, like that of Lee, to listen to a
lieutenant, and when he thought his plan was better than his own to adopt
the lieutenant's and put his own away.

In that memorable interview, from which such stirring campaigns dated,
Grant was impressed more and more by the earnestness and clearness of the
famous Little Phil, and, when they parted, he gave him a free rein and an
open road. Sheridan, when they rode away from the conference, was sober
and thoughtful. He was to carry out his own plan, but the full weight of
the responsibility would be his, and it was very great for a young man
who was not much more than thirty.

But Dick and his comrades felt exultation, and did not try to hide it.
Now that Grant himself had come to see Sheridan the army was bound to
move. Pennington looked toward the South and waved his hand.

"You've been waiting for us a long time, old Jube," he said, "but we're
coming. And you'll see and hear our resistless tread."

"But don't forget, Frank," said Warner soberly, "that we'll have a big
bill of lives to pay. We don't ride unhurt over the Johnnies."

"Don't I know it?" said Pennington. "Haven't I been learning it every
day for three years?"

Action was prompt as the young officers had hoped. The very next day
after the meeting with his superior, Sheridan prepared to march, and the
hopes of Dick and his friends rose very high. They did not know that
daring Southern spies had learned of the meeting of Grant and Sheridan,
and Early, judging that it portended a great movement against him,
was already consolidating his forces and preparing to meet it. And Jubal
Early was an able and valiant general.

Dick did not sleep that night. All had received orders to hold
themselves in readiness for an instant march, and his blood tingled with
expectancy. At midnight the Winchester regiment rode o