ching always became
at once apparent.

"Anyhow," said Daniel meekly, "he wilted, did our Simon of B. B.
calibre, and he gave back the command to Smith. And Smith's first order,
his very first order, sir, was that the Department, the whole fifty
thousand, should march into Shrevepoht and--and _surrender_, by
thunder!"

"Dan, you're not going to tell me----"

"That _we_ surrendered, we, the Missourians, the flower of 'em all?
Now s'pose you just wait till Joe Shelby gets back to us in Arkansas,
after that conference with the other generals? Then you'll see what
_he_ does. He proclaims things, on wall paper. The Missouri Cavalry
Division will march to Shrevepoht, will depose Smith for good, will head
off the surrender, will lead the other divisions on to Mexico. And we
started to do it too. And then, and then--it rained. Rained, sir, till
our trains and guns were mired, and we couldn't budge! And all the time
we knew that regiment after regiment was stacking arms off there at
Shrevepoht. Did Little Joe rave? Opened Job his mouth? He did. His
fluency gave the rain pointers. I sho'ly absorbed some myself, me, that
have language tanks of my own. Well, I reckon all our hearts pretty near
broke. But we had our Missouri general and our Missouri governor, and
the Old Brigade just decided to come along anyhow. And we're a coming,
Din, we're a coming!"

Driscoll's face went blank. He thought of the scant welcome his homeless
comrades would get. But Mr. Boone did not notice. He had only stretched
his canvas, a big one, and there was a picture to paint. His long body
began to straighten out, and his eyes glowed. From Xenophon to Irving's
Astoria, from Hannibal crossing the Alps to Marching Through Georgia, he
ransacked both romance and the classics for adequate tints, but in vain.
The colors would have to be of his own mixing.

"Din Driscoll," he began solemnly, "_you_ know that devil breed? Of
coh'se, you're one of 'em. You're a chunk of brimstone, yourself. And
you'll maybe rec'lect they did some fighting off and on. There was that
raw company, f'r instance--boys, hardly a one broke in his yoke of oxen
yet--and they hadn't even gotten their firearms, but they took a battery
with their naked hands, and got themselves all tangled up in the fiery
woof of death. But you'll not be rec'lecting that that there Brigade
ever _lost_ a gun. And those raids, Din, back into Missouri, a
handful back into the Federal country, when men dozed