ontractor's tone was sincere.

"That's right, good-bye. I see a senator whom I need."

They shook hands and Watson hurried away with great lightness and
agility for so large a man.

Dick stayed two days longer in Washington, visiting Warner twice a day
and seeing with gladness his rapid improvement. When he was with him the
last time, and told him he was going to join the Army of the Potomac,
Warner said:

"Dick, old man, I haven't spoken before of the way you brought me in
from that last battlefield. Pennington has told me about it--but if I
didn't it was not because I wasn't grateful. Up in Vermont we're not
much on words--our training I suppose, though I don't say it is the best
training. It's quite sure that I'd have died if you hadn't found me."

"Why, George, I looked for you as a matter of course. You'd have done
exactly the same for me."

"That's just it, but I didn't get the chance. Now, Dick, there's going
to be another big battle before long, and I shall be up in time for
it. You'll be there, too. Couldn't you get yourself shot late in the
afternoon, lie on the ground, feverish and delirious until far in the
night, when I'd come for you. Then I could pay you back."

Dick laughed. He knew that at the bottom of Warner's jest lay a resolve
to match the score, whenever the chance should come.

"Good-bye, George," he said. "I'll look for you in two weeks."

"Make it only ten days. McClellan will need me by that time."

But it seemed to Dick that McClellan would need him and every other man
at once. Lee was marching. Passing by the capital he had advanced
into Maryland, a Southern state, but one that had never seceded. The
Southerners expected to find many reinforcements here among their
kindred. The regiments in gray, flushed with victory, advanced singing:

"The despot's heel is on thy shore,
Maryland!
His torch is at thy temple door,
Maryland!
Avenge the patriotic gore
That flecked the streets of Baltimore
And be the battle queen of yore,
Maryland, my Maryland!"

Dick knew that the South expected much of Maryland. Her people were
Southerners. Their valor in the Revolution was unsurpassed. People still
talked of the Maryland line and its great deeds. Many of the Marylanders
had already come to Lee and Jackson, and now that the Southern army, led
by its famous leaders and crowned with victories, was