who had raised his
head and was chewing rather noisily, regarding the two by the tree house
with mild interest.

"Don't underrate Shawnee." For an instant Drew rose to the roan's
defense and then found himself irritated at being so drawn from the main
argument. "And I wouldn't care if you had Gray Eagle, himself, under
you, boy--I'm not taking you with me. Let us be snapped up by the
Yankees, and you'd be in bigger trouble than I would." He gestured to
his shirt and breeches. "I'm in uniform; you ain't."

"No blue bellies could drop on us," Boyd pushed. "I know where all the
garrisons are round here--all about their patrols. I could get us
through quicker'n you can, yourself. I ain't no green kid!"

Drew slapped the blanket down on Shawnee's back, smoothed it flat with a
palm stroke, and jerked his saddle from the platform. He could not stay
right here now that Boyd had smoked him out--maybe nowhere in the
neighborhood with this excitable boy dogging him.

The scout was driven to his second line of defense. "What about Cousin
Merry?" he asked as he tightened the cinch. "Have you talked this over
with her--enlistin', I mean?"

Boyd's lower lip protruded in a child's pout. His eyes shifted away from
Drew's direct gaze.

"She never said No----"

"Did you ask her?" Drew challenged.

"Did you ask your grandfather when you left?" Boyd tried a
counterattack.

This time Drew's laughter was harsh, without humor. "You know I didn't,
and you also know why. But I didn't leave a mother!"

He was being purposefully brutal now, for a good reason. Sheldon had
ridden away before; Boyd must not go now. In Drew's childhood, his
father's cousin, Meredith Barrett, had been the only one who had really
cared about him. His only escape from the cold bleakness of Red Springs
had been Barrett's Oak Hill. There was a big debt he owed Cousin Merry;
he could not add to it the burden of taking away her second son.

Sure, he had been only a few months older than this boy when he had run
away to war, but he had not left anyone behind who would worry about
him. And Alexander Mattock's cold discipline had tempered his grandson
into someone far more able to take hard knocks than Boyd Barrett might
be for years to come. Drew had met those knocks, thick and fast,
enduring them as the price of his freedom.

"You were mad at your grandfather, and you ran away. Well, I ain't mad
at Mother, but I ain't goin' to sit at home with General Morgan co