Dick saw that Petty was talkative, but he did not mind.  In fact, both he and Whitley liked the man’s joyous and unbroken run of chatter.  He turned in his saddle and looked back, following the stout man’s pointing finger.  Townsville, though but a little mountain town built mainly of logs, was indeed a jewel, softened and with a silver sheen thrown over it by the mountain air which was misty that morning.  He dimly saw the long black line of the train standing on the track, and here and there warm rings of smoke rose from the chimneys and floated up into the heavens, where they were lost.

He thought he could detect little figures moving beside the train and he knew that they must be those of his comrades.  He felt for a moment a sense of loneliness.  He had not known these lads long, but the battle had bound them firmly together.  They had been comrades in danger and that made them comrades as long as they lived.

“Greatest town in the world,” said Petty, waving toward it a huge hand, encased in a thick yarn glove.  “I’ve traveled from it as much as fifty miles in every direction, north, south, east, an’ west, an’ I ain’t never seed its match.  I reckon I’m somethin’ of a traveler, but every time I come back to Townsville, I think all the more of it, seein’ how much better it is than anything else.”

Dick glanced at the mountaineer, and saw that there could be no doubt of his sincerity.

“You’re a lucky man, Mr. Petty,” he said, “to live in the finest place in the world.”

“Yes, if I don’t get drug off to the war.  I’m not hankerin’ for fightin’ an’ I don’t know much what the war’s about though I’m for the Union, fust to last, an’ that’s the way most of the people ’bout here feel.  Turn your heads ag’in, friends, an’ take another look at Townsville.”

Dick and Whitley glanced back and saw only the blank gray wall of the mountain.  Petty laughed.  He was the finest laugher that Dick had ever heard.  The laugh did not merely come from the mouth, it was also exuded, pouring out through every pore.  It was rolling, unctuous, and so strong that Petty not only shook with it, but his horse seemed to shake also.  It was mellow, too, with an organ note that comes of a mighty lung and throat, and of pure air breathed all the year around.

“Thought I’d git the joke on you,” he said, when he stopped laughing.  “The road’s been slantin’ into the mountains, without you knowin’ it, and Townsville is cut off by the cliffs.  You’ll find it gettin’ wilder now ’till we start down the slope on the other side.  Lucky our hosses are strong, ’cause the mud is deeper than I thought it would be.”

It was not really a road that they were following, merely a path, and the going was painful.  Under Petty’s instructions they stopped their mounts now and then for a rest, and a mile further on they began to feel a rising wind.