nquet.

Such thoughts as these were a part of our lives then, and with such
thoughts my mind was filled as I stepped out into the storm, my trousers
tied down over my boots with bag-strings; my fur cap drawn down over my
eyes, my blue military overcoat flapping about my legs; the cape of it
wrapped about my head, and tied with a woolen comforter.

3

Through these wrappings, a strange sound came to my ears--the sound of
sleigh-bells; and in a moment, so close were they, there emerged from
the whirl of snow, a team of horses drawing a swell-body cutter, in
which sat a man driving, wrapped up in buffalo robes and blankets until
the box of the sleigh was filled. The horses came to a stop in the lee
of my house. There had been no such rig in the county before I had gone
to the war.

"Is this the Vandemark schoolhouse?" came from the man in the cutter.

"No, Captain," said I; for discipline is strong, "this is my farm."

"Ah, it's you, Mr. Vandemark, is it?" said he. "Can you tell me the way
to the schoolhouse?"

Discipline flew off into the storm. I never for a moment harbored the
idea that I was to allow Buck Gowdy to rescue Virginia from the
blizzard, and carry her off into either danger or safety. There was none
of my Dutch hesitation here. This was battle; and I behaved with as much
prompt decision as I did on the field of Shiloh, where, I have the
captain's word for it in writing, I behaved with a good deal of it.

"Never mind about the schoolhouse," I said. "I'll attend to that!'

"The hell you will!" said he, in that calm way of his. "Let me see. Your
house faces the north. These trees are on the section line.... The
schoolhouse is.... I have it, now. Sorry to cut in ahead of you;
but--get up, Susie--Winnie, go on!"

But I had Susie and Winnie by the bits.

"Vandemark," he said, and as he shouted this to make me hear I could
feel the authority I had grown to recognize in drill, "you forget
yourself! Let go those horses!"

"Not by a damned sight!"

I found myself swearing as if I were in the habit of it.

Now the man in any kind of rig with another holding his horses' bits is
in an embarrassing fix. He can't do anything so long as he remains in
the vehicle; and neither can his horses. He must carry the fight to the
other man, or be made a fool of.

Buck Gowdy was not a man to hesitate in such a case. He carried the
fight to me--and I was glad to see him coming. I had waited for this a
long time. I h