The Tree of Appomattox by Joseph A. Altsheler (novels for students .TXT) 📖

The welcome that the column found in Sheridan's camp was as warm as they had hoped, and more. Fifteen hundred sabers such as theirs were not to be valued lightly, and Sheridan knew well the worth of three such colonels as Hertford, Winchester and Bedford, with all three of whom he was acquainted personally, and with whose records he was familiar. Dick, Pennington and Warner also came in for his notice, and he recalled having seen Dick at the fierce battle of Perryville in Kentucky, a fact of which Dick was very proud.

"Now don't become too haughty because he remembers you," said Warner reprovingly. "Bear in mind that trifles sometimes stick longer in our minds than more important things."

"It's just jealousy on your part," said Dick. "You New Englanders are able people, but you can't bear for anybody else to achieve distinction."

"We don't have to feel that jealousy often," said Warner calmly.

"Merit like charity begins with you at home."

"And modesty can't keep us from admitting it, but you Kentuckians do fight well—under our direction."

"Don't talk with him, Dick," said Pennington. "Against his wall of mountainous conceit wisdom breaks in vain."

"I'm glad to see you expressing yourself so poetically, Frank," said Warner. "The New England seed planted in Nebraska will flower into bloom some day."

Sergeant Whitley came at that moment and asked them to go and see the new horses provided for them, and the three went with him, friends bound to one another by hooks of steel. The horses given to them by special favor of Sheridan in place of their worn-out mounts, were splendid animals, and Sergeant Whitley himself had prepared them for their first appearance before their new masters.

"They'll do! They'll do!" said Dick with enthusiasm. "Grand fellows! They ought to carry us anywhere!"

"Upon this point I must confess myself somewhat your inferior," said Warner in his precise manner. "The mountainous character of our state keeps us from making horses a specialty. You, I believe, in Kentucky, pay great attention to their breeding, and so I ask you, young Mr. Mason, if the horse chosen for me is all that he should be."

"He asks it as a matter of condescension, Dick, and not as a favor," said Pennington.

"It's all right any way you take it," laughed Dick. "Yes, George, your horse has no defect. You can always lead the charge on him against Early."

"If I'm not at the very front I expect to be somewhere near it," said Warner. "But don't you like the looks of this camp, boys? It shows order, method and precision. Everything has been done according to the best algebraic formulae. I call it mathematics, charged with fire. Our Little Phil is a great commander. One can feel his spirit in the air all about us."

Dick himself had noticed the military workmanship and that, too, of a high order, and he understood thoroughly that Sheridan had gathered a most formidable army. It was not much short of thirty thousand men, veteran troops, and he had with him Wright, Emory, Crook, Merritt, Averill, Torbert, Wilson and Grover, all able generals. Nor had Sheridan neglected to inform himself of the country over which he intended to march. With his lieutenant of engineers, Meigs, a man of great talent, he had spent days and nights studying maps of the valley. Now he knew all the creeks and brooks and roads and towns, and he understood the country as well as Early himself, who faced him with as large a Confederate force as he could gather.

Dick and his comrades expected immediate action, but it did not come. They lingered for days, due, they supposed, to orders from Washington, but they did not bother themselves about it, as they liked their new camp and were making many new friends. September days passed and they saw the summer turning into autumn. The mountains in the distance looked blue, but, near at hand, their foliage had turned brown. The great heat gave way to a crisper air and the lads who had come from the trenches before Petersburg enjoyed for a little while the luxury of early autumn and illimitable space.

They rode now and then with the cavalry outposts. Early and his men stretched across the valley to oppose them, and often Northern and Southern pickets were in touch, though they seldom fired upon one another. Dick, whenever he rode with the advanced guard, watched for Harry Kenton, St. Clair and Langdon, but it was nearly a week before he saw them. Then they rode with a small group, headed by two elderly but very upright men, whom he knew to be Colonel Leonidas Talbot and Lieutenant Colonel Hector St. Hilaire.

He felt genuine gladness, and, shouting at the top of his voice, he waved his hand. They recognized him, and all waved a welcome in return. He saw the two colonels studying him through their glasses, but he knew that no attack would be made upon him and the little party with which he rode. It was one of those increasing intervals of peace and friendship between battles. The longer the war and the greater the losses the less men troubled themselves to shoot one another save when real battle was joined.

They were about four hundred yards apart and Dick used his glasses also, enabling him to see that the young Southern officers were unwounded—Langdon's slight hurt had healed long since—and were strong and hearty. He thought it likely that they, as well as he, had found the brief period of rest and freedom from war a genuine luxury.

He waved his hand once more, and they waved back as before. Then the course of the two little troops took them away from each other, and the Southerners were hid from his view by a belt of forest. But he was very glad that he had seen them. It had been almost as if there were no war.

Dick rode back to the camp, gave his horse to an orderly, and, walking toward his tent, was met by Warner and Pennington, carrying long slender rods on their shoulders—Warner in fact carrying two.

"What's this?" he exclaimed.

"We're going fishing," replied Warner. "We've permission for you also. There's a fine stream about a half mile west of us, running through the woods, and it's been fished in but little since the war started. Here, take your rod! You don't expect me to carry it for you any longer do you? It has a good hook and line and it's easy for us to find bait under a big stone on soft soil."

"Thank you, George," said Dick happily. "You couldn't keep me from going with you two. Do you know, I haven't been fishing in more than three years, and me not yet of age?"

"Well, now's your chance, and you may not have another until after the war is over. They say it's a fine stream, though, of course, it's not like the beautiful little rivers of Vermont, that come dashing down from the mountains all molten silver, where they're not white foam. Splendid fish! Splendid rivers! Splendid sport! Dick, do you think I'm facing now in the exact direction of Vermont?"

He had turned about and was gazing with a rapt look into the northeast.

"I should say," said Dick, "that if your gaze went far enough it would strike squarely upon the Green Mountains of Vermont."

Warner's hand rose in a slow and majestic salute.

"Great little state, mother of men, I salute thee!" he said. "Thou art stern and yet beautiful to the eye and thy sons love thee! I, who am but one among them, love all thy rocks, and clear streams, and noble mountains and green foliage! Here, from the battle fields and across the distance I salute thee, O great little state! O mother of men!"

"Quite dithyrambic," said Dick, "and now that your burst of rhetoric is over let's go on and catch our fish. Will you also use your romantic science of mathematics in fishing? By the way, what has become of that little algebra book of yours?"

"It's here," said Warner, taking it from the breast pocket of his tunic. "I never part with it and I most certainly expect to use its principles when I reach the fishing stream. Let x express my equipment and myself, let y equal skill and patience; x we shall say also equals the number 7, while y equals the number 5. Now the fish are represented by z which is equal to 12. It is obvious even to slow minds like yours and Pennington's that neither x nor y alone can equal z, the fish, otherwise 12, but when combined they represent that value exactly, that is x plus y equals 12. So, if I and my equipment coordinate perfectly with my skill and patience, which most certainly will happen, the fish are as good as caught by me already. The rest is a mere matter of counting."

"Best give in, Dick," said Pennington. "He'll always prove to you by his algebra that he knows everything, and that everything he does is right. Of course, he's the best fisherman in the world!"

"I'd have you to know, Francis Pennington," said Warner, with dignity, "that I was a very good fisherman when I was five years old, and that I've been improving ever since, and that Vermont is full of fine deep streams, in which one can fish with pleasure and profit. What do you know, you prairie-bred young ruffian, about fishing? I've heard that your creeks and brooks are nothing but strips of muddy dew. The Platte River itself, I believe, is nearly two inches deep at its deepest parts. I don't suppose there's another stream in America which takes up so much space on the map and so little on the ground."

"The Platte is a noble river," rejoined Pennington. "What it lacks in depth it makes up in length, and I'll not have it insulted by anybody in its absence."

While they talked they passed through the brown woods and came to the creek, flowing with a fine volume of water down from the mountains into one of the rivers of the valley.

"It's up to its advertisements," said Warner, looking at it with satisfaction. "It's clear, deep and it ought to have plenty of good fish. I see a snug place between the roots of that oak growing upon the bank, and there I sit."

"There are plenty of good places," said Dick, as they seated themselves and unwrapped their lines, "and I've a notion that our fishing is going to prove good. Isn't it fine? Why, it's like being back home!"

"Time's rolled back and we're just boys again," said Pennington.

"Don't try to be poetic, Frank," said Warner. "I've told you already that a man who has nothing but muddy streaks of dew to fish in can't know anything about fishing."

"Stop quarreling, you two," said Dick. "Don't you know that such voices as yours raised in loud tones would scare away the boldest fish that ever swam?"

The three cast their lines out into the stream. They were of the old-fashioned kind, a hook, a lead sinker, and a cork on the line to keep it from sinking too far. Dick had used just such an equipment since he was eight years old, in the little river at Pendleton, and now he was anxious to prove to himself that he had not lost his skill. All three were as eager to catch a fish as they were to win a battle, and, for the time, the war was forgotten. It seemed to Dick as he sat on the brown turf between the enclosing roots of the tree, and leaning against its trunk, that his lost youth had returned. He was just a boy again, fishing and with no care save to raise something on his hook. The wood, although small, was dense, and it shut out all view of the army. Nor did any martial sounds come to them. The rustle of the leaves under the gentle wind was soothing. He was back at Pendleton. Harry Kenton was fishing farther up the stream, and so were other boys, his old friends of the little town.

The bit of forest was to all intents a wilderness just then, and it was so pleasant in the comfortable place between the supporting roots of the tree that