to have
had it, or else he over-estimated the strength of the enemy, for he fell
back and the Confederates went into winter quarters, Price at
Springfield and McCulloch just over the line into Arkansas. Now the two
friends had time and opportunity for visiting, but there was no one for
them to visit. Dick showed Rodney where his father's house and Mr.
Percival's had once stood, but there was nothing left of them but
blackened ruins. The rebels had "done the business" for one, and Union
men had "cleaned out" the other. Dick fully expected to find it so, for
he had often seen such evidence of vandalism and hatred during his long
marches through the State. The boys afterward learned that Dick's father
and mother had taken refuge with friends in Little Rock, while Mr.
Percival's family had, in some mysterious way, succeeded in reaching St.
Louis. Rodney was depressed by the sight of the ruins, and thanked his
lucky stars that his father and mother lived in a State in which such
things never could be done. The few Union men there were in and around
Mooreville would never dare trouble his folks, and the Yankees would not
be able to penetrate so far into the Confederacy.

Garrison duty, as the boys called their life in winter quarters, was
most distasteful to them, and it was with great delight that they
listened to the rumors which early in February came up from McCulloch's
camp, to the effect that the two armies were to take the field again at
once, but that their campaign was to be in a different direction. These
rumors did not say that the Richmond government had decided to give up
the struggle in Missouri and turn its attention to more important
points, but the men, who talked freely in the presence of their
officers, declared that that was what the new move would amount to. They
were to proceed to New Madrid to operate with the Army of the Center in
checking the advance of the Federals, who were threatening Island No.
10.

For once rumor told the truth and the move was made, though not in the
way Rodney and Dick thought it would be. One Sunday morning there was a
terrible uproar made by a scouting party which came tearing into camp
with the information that General Curtis's army, forty thousand strong,
was close upon Springfield and more coming. This rumor was also true;
and "Old Pap Price," as his men had learned to call him, who was not
much of a fighter but a "master hand at running," made haste to get his
wagon-tr