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."

"I'll do what I can," promised Dick faithfully, and he did much.
Colonel Newcomb had already formed a strong attachment for this zealous
and valuable young aide, and he did not forget the words that Dick
said on every convenient occasion about the west. He made urgent
representations that he and his regiment be sent to the relief of the
struggling Northern forces there, and he contrived also that these
petitions should reach the President. One day the order came to go,
but not to St. Louis, where Halleck, now in command, was. Instead they
were to enter the mountains of West Virginia and Kentucky, and help the
mountaineers who were loyal to the Union. If they accomplished that
task with success, they were to proceed to the greater theatre in
Western Kentucky and Tennessee. It was not all they wished, but they
thought it far better than remaining at Washington, where it seemed
that the army would remain indefinitely.

Colonel Newcomb, who was sitting in his tent bending over maps with his
staff, summoned Dick.

"You are a Kentuckian, my lad," he said, "and I thought you might know
something about this region into which we are going."