“It’s not frivolity, George.  It’s a gay and bright spirit, in the rays of which you may bask without price.  It will do you good.”

“Do you know what’s to be our next duty?”

“No, I don’t, and I’m not going to bother about it.  I’ll leave that directly to Colonel Winchester, and indirectly to General Sheridan.  When you rest, put your mind at rest.  Concentration on whatever you are doing is the secret of continued success.”

They were lying on blankets near the foot of the mountain, and the time was late October.  The days were growing cold and the nights colder, but a fine big fire was blazing before them, and they rejoiced in the warmth and brightness, shed from the flames and the heaps of glowing coals.

“I’ll venture the prediction,” said Pennington, “that our next march is not against an army, but against guerrillas.  They say that up there in the Alleghanies Slade and Skelly are doing a lot of harm.  They may have to be hunted out and the Winchester men have the best reputation in the army for that sort of work.  We earned it by our work against these very fellows in Tennessee.”

“For which most of the credit is due to Sergeant Whitley,” said Dick.  “He’s a grand trailer, and he can lead us with certainty, when other regiments can’t find the way.”

Dick gazed westward beyond the dim blue line of the Alleghanies, and he knew that he would feel no surprise if Pennington’s prediction should come true.  The nest of difficult mountains was a good shelter for outlaws, and the Winchesters, with the sergeant picking up the trail, were the very men to hunt them.

He knew too that, unless the task was begun soon, it would prove a supreme test of endurance, and there would be dangers in plenty.  Snow would be falling before long on the mountains, and they would become a frozen wilderness, almost as wild and savage as they were before the white man came.

But it seemed for a while that the intuition of both Dick and Pennington had failed.  They spent many days in the valley trying to catch the evasive Mosby and his men, although they had little success.  Mosby’s rangers knowing the country thoroughly made many daring raids, although they could not become a serious menace.

When they returned through Winchester from the last of these expeditions the Winchester men were wrapped in heavy army cloaks, for the wind from the mountains could now cut through uniforms alone.  Dick, glancing toward the Alleghanies, saw a ribbon of white above their blue line.

“Look, fellows!  The first snow!” he said.

“I see,” said Warner.  “It snows on the just and the unjust, the unjust being Slade and Skelly, who are surely up there.”

“Just before we went out,” sad Pennington, “the news of some fresh and special atrocity of theirs came in.  I’m thinking the time is near when we’ll be sent after them.”

“We’ll need snow shoes,” said Warner, shivering as he looked.  “I can see that the snow is increasing.  Which way is the wind blowing, Dick?”