The two youths, one officer and one private, became fast friends in a moment.  Events move swiftly in war.  Both now felt the great engines throbbing faster beneath them, and the flotilla, well into the mouth of the Ohio, was leaving the Mississippi behind them.  But the Ohio here for a distance is apparently the mightier stream, and they gazed with interest and a certain awe at the vast yellow sheet enclosed by shores, somber in the gray garb of winter.  It was the beginning of February, and cold winds swept down from the Illinois prairies.  Cairo had been left behind and there was no sign of human habitation.  Some wild fowl, careless of winter, flew over the stream, dipped toward the water, and then flew away again.

As far as the eye was concerned the wilderness circled about them and enclosed them.  The air was cold and flakes of snow dropped upon the decks and the river, but were gone in an instant.  The skies were an unbroken sheet of gray.  The scene so lonely and desolate contained a majesty that impressed them all, heightened for these youths by the knowledge that many of them were going on a campaign from which they would never return.

“Looks as wild as the great plains on which I’ve hunted with my father,” said Pennington.

“But we hunt bigger game than buffalo,” said Dick.

“Game that is likely to turn and hunt us.”

“Yes.”

“Do you know where we’re going?”

“Not exactly, but I can make a good guess.  I know that we’ve taken on Tennessee River pilots, and I’m sure that we’ll turn into the mouth of that river at Paducah.  I infer that we’re to attack Fort Henry, which the Confederates have erected some distance up the Tennessee to guard that river.”

“Looks likely.  Do you know much about the fort?”

“I’ve heard of it only since I came to Cairo.  I know that it stands on low, marshy ground facing the Tennessee, and that it contains seventeen big guns.  I haven’t heard anything about the size of its garrison.”

“But we’ll have a fight, that’s sure,” said young Pennington.  “I’ve been in battle only once—­at Columbus—­but the Johnny Rebs don’t give up forts in a hurry.”

“There’s another fort, a much bigger one, named Donelson, on the Cumberland,” said Dick.  “Both the forts are in Tennessee, but as the two rivers run parallel here in the western parts of the two states, Fort Donelson and Fort Henry are not far apart.  I risk a guess that we attack both.”

“You don’t risk much.  I tell you, Dick, that man Grant is a holy terror.  He isn’t much to look at, but he’s a marcher and a fighter.  We fellows in the ranks soon learn what kind of a man is over us.  I suppose it’s like the horse feeling through the bit the temper of his rider.  President Lincoln has stationed General Halleck at St. Louis with general command here in the West.  General Halleck thinks that General Grant is a meek subordinate without ambition, and will always be sending back to him for instructions, which is just what General Halleck likes, but we in the ranks have learned to know our Grant better.”