“Come, lads,” said Colonel Newcomb to his staff.  “Out with you!  We’re among friends here!”

Dick and Warner were glad enough to leave the train.  The air, cold as it was, was like the breath of heaven on their faces, and the cheers of the people were like the trump of fame in their ears.  Pretty girls with their faces in red hoods or red comforters were there with food and smoking coffee.  Medicines for the wounded, as much as the village could supply, had been brought to the train, and places were already made for those hurt too badly to go on with the expedition.

The whole cheerful scene, with its life and movement, the sight of new faces and the sound of many voices, had a wonderful effect upon young Dick Mason.  He had a marvellously sensitive temperament, a direct inheritance from his famous border ancestor, Paul Cotter.  Things were always vivid to him.  Either they glowed with color, or they were hueless and dead.  This morning the long strain of the night and its battle was relaxed completely.  The grass in the valley was brown with frost, and the trees were shorn of their leaves by the winter winds, but to Dick it was the finest village that he had ever seen, and these were the friendliest people in the world.

He drank a cup of hot coffee handed to him by the stalwart wife of a farmer, and then, when she insisted, drank another.

“You’re young to be fightin’,” she said sympathetically.

“We all are,” said Dick with a glance at the regiment, “but however we may fight you’ll never find anybody attacking a breakfast with more valor and spirit than we do.”

She looked at the long line of lads, drinking coffee and eating ham, bacon, eggs, and hot biscuits, and smiled.

“I reckon you tell the truth, young feller,” she said, “but it’s good to see ’em go at it.”

She passed on to help others, and Dick, summoned by Colonel Newcomb, went into a little railroad and telegraph station.  The telegraph wires had been cut behind them, but ten miles across the mountains the spur of another railroad touched a valley.  The second railroad looped toward the north, and it was absolutely sure that it was beyond the reach of Southern raiders.  Colonel Newcomb wished to send a message to the Secretary of War and the President, telling of the night’s events and his triumphant passage through the ordeal.  These circumstances might make them wish to change his orders, and at any rate the commander of the regiment wished to be sure of what he was doing.

“You’re a Kentuckian and a good horseman,” said Colonel Newcomb to Dick.  “The villagers have sent me a trusty man, one Bill Petty, as a guide.  Take Sergeant Whitley and you three go to the station.  I’ve already written my dispatches, and I put them in your care.  Have them sent at once, and if necessary wait four hours for an answer.  If it comes, ride back as fast as you can.  The horses are ready and I rely upon you.”