“I am in your way,” he said, quietly.  And backing Dixie from the road, and without bending his head or lowering his eyes, he waited, hat in hand, for Margaret to pass.

All that day Chad rode, and, next morning, Dixie climbed the Union bank of the Ohio and trotted into the recruiting camp of the Fourth Ohio Cavalry.  The first man Chad saw was Harry Dean—­grave, sombre, taciturn, though he smiled and thrust out his hand eagerly.  Chad’s eyes dropped to the sergeant’s stripes on Harry’s sleeves, and again Harry smiled.

“You’ll have ’em yourself in a week.  These fellows ride like a lot of meal-bags over here.  Here’s my captain,” he added, in a lower voice.

A pompous officer rode slowly up.  He pulled in his horse when he saw Chad.

“You want to join the army?”

“Yes,” said Chad.

“All right.  That’s a fine horse you’ve got.”

Chad said nothing.

“What’s his name?”

“Her name is Dixie.”

The captain stared.  Some soldiers behind laughed in a smothered fashion, sobering their’ faces quickly when the captain turned upon them, furious.

“Well, change her name!”

“I’ll not change her name,” said Chad, quietly.

“What!” shouted the officer.  “How dare you—­” Chad’s eyes looked ominous.

“Don’t you give any orders to me—­not yet.  You haven’t the right; and when you have, you can save your breath by not giving that one.  This horse comes from Kentucky, and so do I; her name will stay Dixie as long as I straddle her, and I propose to straddle her until one of us dies, or,”—­he smiled and nodded across the river—­“somebody over there gets her who won’t object to her name as much as you do.”

The astonished captain’s lips opened, but a quiet voice behind interrupted him: 

“Never mind, Captain.”  Chad turned and saw a short, thick-set man with a stubbly brown beard, whose eyes were twinkling, though his face was grave.  “A boy who wants to fight for the Union, and insists on calling his horse Dixie, must be all right.  Come with me, my lad.”

As Chad followed, he heard the man saluted as Colonel Grant, but he paid no heed.  Few people at that time did pay heed to the name of Ulysses Grant.

CHAPTER 22.  MORGAN’S MEN

Boots and saddles at daybreak!

Over the border, in Dixie, two videttes in gray trot briskly from out a leafy woodland, side by side, and looking with keen eyes right and left; one, erect, boyish, bronzed; the other, slouching, bearded, huge—­the boy, Daniel Dean; the man, Rebel Jerry Dillon, one of the giant twins.