a good fightah,
but slow. Liable to git thar, an' hit like all ta'nation, when it's a
little mite too late. He's one of ouah own Kentuckians, an' I won't say
anything ag'in him; not a wo'd, colonel, don't think that, but I've been
pow'ful took with this fellow Grant. I ain't any sojah, myself, but I
like the tales I heah 'bout him. When a fellow hits him he hits back
ha'dah, then the fellow comes back with anothah ha'dah still, an' then
Grant up an' hits him a wallop that you heah a mile, an' so on an' so
on."

"You're right, Malachi. I was with him at Donelson and Shiloh and that's
the way he did."

"I reckon it's the right way. Is it true, colonel, that he taps the
ba'el?"

"Taps the barrel? What do you mean, Malachi?"

White put his hands hollowed out like a scoop to his mouth and turned up
his face.

"I see," said Colonel Winchester, "and I'm glad to say no, Malachi. If
he takes anything he takes water just like the rest of us."

"Pow'ful glad to heah it, but it ain't easy to get too much good watah
this yeah. Nevah knowed such a dry season befoah, an' I was fifty-two
yeahs old, three weeks an' one day ago yestuhday."

"Thank you, Malachi, for your warning. We'll be doubly careful, because
of it, and I hope after this war is over to share your fine hospitality
once more."

"You'll sho'ly be welcome an' ev'y man an' boy with you will be welcome,
too. Fuhthah on, 'bout foah hund'ed yahds, you'll come to a path leadin'
into the woods. You take that path, colonel. It'll be sundown soon, an'
you follow it th'ough the night."

The two men shook hands again, and then the soldiers rode on at a brisk
trot. Malachi White sat on the fence, looking at them from under the
brim of his old straw hat, until they came to the path that he had
indicated and disappeared in the woods. Then he sighed and walked back
slowly to his house in the cornfield. Malachi White had no education,
but he had much judgment and he was a philosopher.

But Dick and the others rode on through the forest, penetrating into the
high and rough hills which were sparsely inhabited. The nights, as it
was now October, were cool, despite the heat and dust of the day, and
they rode in a grateful silence. It was more than an hour after dark
when Powell, one of the Frankforters, spoke:

"We can hit the old town by midnight easy enough," he said. "Unless
they've stretched pretty wide lines of pickets I can lead you, sir,
within four hundred yards of Fra