“It is good,” said the stolid cavalryman, as Armitage wheeled again into line with him.

“Yes, it is good,” repeated Armitage.

A peace descended upon him that he had not known in many days.  The light grew as the sun rose higher, blazing upon them like a brazen target through deep clefts in the mountains.  The morning mists retreated before them to farther ridges and peaks, and the beautiful gray-blue of the Virginia hills delighted Armitage’s eyes.  The region was very wild.  Here and there from some mountaineer’s cabin a light penciling of smoke stole upward.  They once passed a boy driving a yoke of steers.  After several miles the road, that had hung midway of the rough hill, dipped down sharply, and they came out into another and broader valley, where there were tilled farms, and a little settlement, with a blacksmith shop and a country store, post-office and inn combined.  The storekeeper stood in the door, smoking a cob pipe.  Seeing Oscar, he went inside and brought out some letters and newspapers, which he delivered in silence.

“This is Lamar post-office,” announced Oscar.

“There must be some mail here for me,” said Armitage.

Oscar handed him several long envelopes—­they bore the name of the Bronx Loan and Trust Company, whose office in New York was his permanent address, and he opened and read a number of letters and cablegrams that had been forwarded.  Their contents evidently gave him satisfaction, for he whistled cheerfully as he thrust them into his pocket.

“You keep in touch with the world, do you, Oscar?  It is commendable.”

“I take a Washington paper—­it relieves the monotony, and I can see where the regiments are moving, and whether my old captain is yet out of the hospital, and what happened to my lieutenant in his court-martial about the pay accounts.  One must observe the world—­yes?  At the post-office back there”—­he jerked his head to indicate—­“it is against the law to sell whisky in a post-office, so that storekeeper with the red nose and small yellow eyes keeps it in a brown jug in the back room.”

“To be sure,” laughed Armitage.  “I hope it is a good article.”

“It is vile,” replied Oscar.  “His brother makes it up in the hills, and it is as strong as wood lye.”

“Moonshine!  I have heard of it.  We must have some for rainy days.”

It was a new world to John Armitage, and his heart was as light as the morning air as he followed Oscar along the ruddy mountain road.  He was in Virginia, and somewhere on this soil, perhaps in some valley like the one through which he rode, Shirley Claiborne had gazed upon blue distances, with ridge rising against ridge, and dark pine-covered slopes like these he saw for the first time.  He had left his affairs in Washington in a sorry muddle; but he faced the new day with a buoyant spirit, and did not trouble himself to look very far ahead.  He had a definite