“They’ll do!  They’ll do!” said Dick with enthusiasm.  “Grand fellows!  They ought to carry us anywhere!”

“Upon this point I must confess myself somewhat your inferior,” said Warner in his precise manner.  “The mountainous character of our state keeps us from making horses a specialty.  You, I believe, in Kentucky, pay great attention to their breeding, and so I ask you, young Mr. Mason, if the horse chosen for me is all that he should be.”

“He asks it as a matter of condescension, Dick, and not as a favor,” said Pennington.

“It’s all right any way you take it,” laughed Dick.  “Yes, George, your horse has no defect.  You can always lead the charge on him against Early.”

“If I’m not at the very front I expect to be somewhere near it,” said Warner.  “But don’t you like the looks of this camp, boys?  It shows order, method and precision.  Everything has been done according to the best algebraic formulae.  I call it mathematics, charged with fire.  Our Little Phil is a great commander.  One can feel his spirit in the air all about us.”

Dick himself had noticed the military workmanship and that, too, of a high order, and he understood thoroughly that Sheridan had gathered a most formidable army.  It was not much short of thirty thousand men, veteran troops, and he had with him Wright, Emory, Crook, Merritt, Averill, Torbert, Wilson and Grover, all able generals.  Nor had Sheridan neglected to inform himself of the country over which he intended to march.  With his lieutenant of engineers, Meigs, a man of great talent, he had spent days and nights studying maps of the valley.  Now he knew all the creeks and brooks and roads and towns, and he understood the country as well as Early himself, who faced him with as large a Confederate force as he could gather.

Dick and his comrades expected immediate action, but it did not come.  They lingered for days, due, they supposed, to orders from Washington, but they did not bother themselves about it, as they liked their new camp and were making many new friends.  September days passed and they saw the summer turning into autumn.  The mountains in the distance looked blue, but, near at hand, their foliage had turned brown.  The great heat gave way to a crisper air and the lads who had come from the trenches before Petersburg enjoyed for a little while the luxury of early autumn and illimitable space.

They rode now and then with the cavalry outposts.  Early and his men stretched across the valley to oppose them, and often Northern and Southern pickets were in touch, though they seldom fired upon one another.  Dick, whenever he rode with the advanced guard, watched for Harry Kenton, St. Clair and Langdon, but it was nearly a week before he saw them.  Then they rode with a small group, headed by two elderly but very upright men, whom he knew to be Colonel Leonidas Talbot and Lieutenant Colonel Hector St. Hilaire.