Warner and the sergeant knew that the letter was from Dick’s mother, but they had too much delicacy to ask him questions.  The boy folded the sheets carefully and returned them to their place in the inside pocket of his coat.  Then he looked for a while thoughtfully into the blaze and the great bed of coals that had formed beneath.  As far as one could see to right and left like fires burned, but the night remained dark with promise of rain, and the chill wind out of the northwest increased in vigor.  The words just read for the fifth time had sunk deep in his mind, and he was feeling the call of the west.

“My mother writes,” he said to his comrades, “that the Confederate general, Buckner, whom I know, is gathering a large force around Bowling Green in the southern part of our state, and that fighting is sure to occur soon between that town and the Mississippi.  An officer named Grant has come down from Illinois, and he is said to be pushing the Union troops forward with a lot of vigor.  Sergeant, you are up on army affairs.  Do you know this man Grant?”

Sergeant Whitley shook his head.

“Never heard of him,” he replied.  “Like as not he’s one of the officers who resigned from the army after the Mexican War.  There was so little to do then, and so little chance of promotion, that a lot of them quit to go into business.  I suppose they’ll all be coming back now.”

“I want to go out there,” said Dick.  “It’s my country, and the westerners at least are acting.  But look at our army here!  Bull Run was fought the middle of summer.  Now it’s nearly winter, and nothing has been done.  We don’t get out of sight of Washington.  If I can get myself sent west I’m going.”

“And I’m going with you,” said Warner.

“Me, too,” said the sergeant.

“I know that Colonel Newcomb’s eyes are turning in that direction,” continued Dick.  “He’s a war-horse, he is, and he’d like to get into the thick of it.”

“You’re his favorite aide,” said the calculating young Vermonter.  “Can’t you sow those western seeds in his mind and keep on sowing them?  The fact that you are from this western battle ground will give more weight to what you say.  You do this, and I’ll wager that within a week the Colonel will induce the President to send the whole regiment to the Mississippi.”

“Can you reduce your prediction to a mathematical certainty?” asked Dick, a twinkle appearing in his eye.

“No, I can’t do that,” replied Warner, with an answering twinkle, “but you’re the very fellow to influence Colonel Newcomb’s mind.  I’m a mathematician and I work with facts, but you have the glowing imagination that conduces to the creation of facts.”

“Big words!  Grand words!” said the sergeant.

“Never let Colonel Newcomb forget the west,” continued Warner, not noticing the interruption.  “Keep it before him all the time.  Hint that there can be no success along the Mississippi without him and his regiment.”