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