untryman, sitting upon the wall of loose stones, was greeted
affectionately by each passing company. He was a big, stupid-looking man,
with a gray fowl hanging, head downward, from his hand, and as he responded
"Howdy," in an expressionless tone, the fowl craned its long neck upward
and pecked at the creeper on the wall.

"Howdy, Jim!" "Howdy, Peter!" "Howdy, Luke!" sang the first line. "How's
your wife?" "How's your wife's mother?" "How's your sister-in-law's uncle?"
inquired the next. The countryman spat into the ditch and stared solemnly
in reply, and the gray fowl, still craning its neck, pecked steadily at the
leaves upon the stones.

Dan looked up into the blue sky, across the open meadows to the far-off low
mountains, and then down the long turnpike where the dust hung in a yellow
cloud. In the bright sunshine he saw the flash of steel and the glitter of
gold braid, and the noise of tramping feet cheered him like music as he
walked on gayly, filled with visions. For was he not marching to his chosen
end--to victory, to Chericoke--to Betty? Or if the worst came to the
worst--well, a man had but one life, after all, and a life was a little
thing to give his country. Then, as always, his patriotism appealed to him
as a romance rather than a religion--the fine Southern ardour which had
sent him, at the first call, into the ranks, had sprung from an inward, not
an outward pressure. The sound of the bugle, the fluttering of the flags,
the flash of hot steel in the sunlight, the high old words that stirred
men's pulses--these things were his by blood and right of heritage. He
could no more have stifled the impulse that prompted him to take a side in
any fight than he could have kept his heart cool beneath the impassioned
voice of a Southern orator. The Major's blood ran warm through many
generations.

"I say, Beau, did you put a millstone in my knapsack?" inquired Bland
suddenly. His face was flushed, and there was a streak of wet dust across
his forehead. "If you did, it was a dirty joke," he added irritably. Dan
laughed. "Now that's odd," he replied, "because there's one in mine also,
and, moreover, somebody has stuck penknives in my boots. Was it you,
Pinetop?"

But the mountaineer shook his head in silence, and then, as they halted to
rest upon the roadside, he flung himself down beneath the shadow of a
sycamore, and raised his canteen to his lips. He had come leisurely at his
long strides, and as Dan looked at h