bove the hilltops, and all the
rifle barrels gleamed in the light. Marchmont and the new-met captain
approached the courier from Kelly, sitting his horse in the middle of
the road. "Lieutenant McNeill," said the aide with quietness, "there
seemed, at Frederick, some irregularity in your papers. Doubtless
everything can be explained, and your delay in reaching Romney will be
slight. It is my duty to conduct you to Williamsport headquarters, and
to report the matter to the colonel commanding. I regret the
interruption--not a long continued one, I trust--to our pleasant
relations."

McNeill had made a movement of surprise, and his brows had come
together. It was but for an instant, then he smiled, and smiled with his
eyes. "If such are your orders, sir, neither you nor I can help the
matter. To headquarters, of course--the sooner the better! I can have no
possible objection."

He touched his horse and advanced a little farther into the road. All
the blue soldiers were about him. A sergeant-major, brought for the
moment opposite him, uttered an exclamation. "You know this officer,
Miller?" called the captain of infantry.

Miller saluted. "No, sir. But I was in the ferry-boat when he crossed
yesterday. We talked a little. 'You've got a Southern voice,' says I,
and he says, 'Yes. I was born in the valley of the South Branch.'
'You'll find company here,' says I, 'for we've got some northwestern
Virginians--'"

"By jingo!" cried the captain, "that's true! There's a squad of them
here." He raised his voice. "Men from northwest Virginia, advance!"

A detachment swung forward, lean men and tall, stamped as hunters,
eighteenth-century frontiersmen projected to the middle of the
nineteenth. "Do any of you men know the South Branch of the Potomac?"

Three voices made themselves heard. "Know it like a book."--"Don't know
it like a book--know it like I know my gun and dawg."--"Don't know any
good of it--they-uns air all rebels down that-a-way!"

"Especially," said a fourth voice, "the McNeills."

The courier from Kelly glanced at him sharply. "And what have you got,
my man, against the McNeills?"

"I've got something," stated the mountaineer doggedly. "Something ever
since afore the Mexican War. Root and branch, I've got something against
them. When I heard, over there in Grant, that they was hell-bent for the
Confederacy, I just went, hell-bent, for the other side. Root and
branch, I know them, and root and branch they're d