The mighty chorus sank away and the hills gave it back in echoes until the last one died.

“It’s sung mostly in the South,” said Dick to Warner and Pennington.

“True,” said Warner, “but before the war songs were not confined to one section.  They were the common property of both.  We’ve as much right to sing Juanita as the Johnnies have.”

All that day they rode and sang, going north toward Halltown, where the forces of Sheridan were gathering, and the valley, although lone and desolate, continually unfolded its beauty before them.  The mountains were green near by and blue in the distance, and the fertile floor that they enclosed, like walls, was cut by many streams.  Here, indeed, was a region that had bloomed before the war, and that would bloom again, no matter what war might do.

They found inhabited houses now and then, but all the men of military age were gone away and the old men, the women and the children would answer nothing.  The women were not afraid to tell the Yankees what they thought of them, and in this war which was never a war on women the troopers merely laughed, or, if they felt anger, they hid it.

On they went through night and day, and now they drew near to Sheridan.  Scouts in blue met them and the gallant column shook their sabers and saluted.  Yes, it was true, they said, that Sheridan was gathering a fine army and he and all of his men were eager to march, but Colonel Hertford’s force, sent by General Grant to help, would be welcomed with shouts.  The fame of its three colonels had gone on before.

It was bright noon when they approached the northern end of the valley, and Dick saw a horseman followed by a group of about twenty men galloping toward them.  The leader was a short, slender man, sitting firmly in his saddle.

“General Sheridan!” exclaimed Shepard.

Colonel Hertford instantly ordered his trumpeter to sound a signal, and the troopers, stopping and drawing up in a long line, awaited the man who was to command them, and who was coming on so fast.  Again Dick examined him closely through his glasses, and he saw the young, tanned face under the broad brim of his hat, and the keen, flashing eyes.  He noticed also how small he was.  Sheridan was but five feet five inches in height and he weighed in the momentous campaign now about to begin, only one hundred and fifteen pounds!  As slight as a young boy, he gave, nevertheless, an impression of the greatest vigor and endurance.

He reined in his horse a score of yards in front of the long line and was about to speak to Colonel Hertford, who sat his saddle before it, Colonel Winchester and Colonel Bedford on either side of him, but there was a sudden interruption.

Fifteen hundred sabers flashed aloft, the blazing sunlight glittering for a moment on their broad blades.  Then they swept in mighty curves, all together, and from fifteen hundred throats thundered: