y showed his middle front teeth at first, gradually
broadened until it showed all of them. Then it rippled and stretched in
little waves, until it stopped somewhere near his ears. Dick regarded
him with delight. It was the broadest and finest smile that he had seen
in many a long month.

"Now I know you," said Malachi White, looking intently at the colonel.
"I ain't as strong on faces as some people, though I reckon I'm right
strong on 'em, too, but I'm pow'ful strong on recollectin' hear'in',
that is, the voice and the trick of it. It was fo' yea's ago when you
stopped at my house. You had a curious trick of pronouncin' r's when
they wasn't no r's. You'd say door, an' hour, when ev'body knowed it was
doah, an' houah, but I don't hold it ag'in you fo' not knowin' how to
pronounce them wo'ds. Yoh name is Ahthuh Winchestuh."

"As right as right can be," said Colonel Winchester, reaching over and
giving him a hearty hand. "I'm a colonel in the Union army now, and
these are my officers and men. What was it you wanted to tell us?"

"Not to ride on fuhthah. It ain't mo' than fifteen miles to Frankfort.
The place is plum full of the Johnnies. I seed 'em thah myself. Ki'by
Smith, an' a sma't gen'ral he is, too, is thah, an' so's Bragg, who I
don't know much 'bout. They's as thick as black be'ies in a patch, an'
they's all gettin ready fo' a gran' ma'ch an' display to-mo'ow when
they sweah in the new Southe'n gove'nuh, Mistah Hawes. They've got out
scouts, too, colonel, an' if you go on you'll run right squah into 'em
an' be took, which I allow you don't want to happen, nohow."

"No, Malachi, I don't, nor do any of us, but we're going on and we don't
mean to be taken. Most of the men know this country well. Two of them,
in fact, were born in Frankfort."

"Then mebbe you kin look out fo' yo'selves, bein' as you are
Kentuckians. I'm mighty strong fo' the Union myself, but a lot of them
officers that came down from the no'th 'pear to tu'n into pow'ful fools
when they git away from home, knowin' nothin' 'bout the country, an'
not willin' to lea'n. Always walkin' into traps. I guess they've nevah
missed a single trap the rebels have planted. Sometimes I've been so
mad 'bout it that I've felt like quittin' bein' a Yank an' tu'nin' to a
Johnny. But somehow I've nevah been able to make up my mind to go ag'in
my principles. Is Gen'ral Grant leadin' you?"

"No, General Buell."

"I'm so'y of that. Gen'ral Buell, f'om all I heah, is