or Sheldon and Cranor. He turns his eyes
to the northward, and his lip tightens, as he throws off his coat, and
says to his hundred men,--"Boys, _we_ must go at them!"

The other is in Rebel gray. Moving out to the brow of the opposite hill,
and placing a glass to his eye, he, too, takes a long look to the
northward. He starts, for he sees something which the other, on lower
ground, does not distinguish. Soon he wheels his horse, and the word
"RETREAT" echoes along the valley between them. It is his last
word; for six rifles crack, and the Rebel Major lies on the ground
quivering.

The one in blue looks to the north again, and now, floating proudly
among the trees, he sees the starry banner. It is Sheldon and Cranor!
The long ride of the scout is at last doing its work for the nation. On
they come like the rushing wind, filling the air with their shouting.
The rescued eleven hundred take up the strain, and then, above the swift
pursuit, above the lessening conflict, above the last boom of the
wheeling cannon, goes up the wild huzza of Victory. The gallant Garfield
has won the day, and rolled back the disastrous tide which has been
sweeping on ever since Big Bethel. In ten days Thomas routs Zollicoffer,
and then we have and hold Kentucky.

* * * * *

Every one remembers a certain artist, who, after painting a "neighing
steed," wrote underneath the picture, "This is a horse," lest it should
be mistaken for an alligator. I am tempted to imitate his example, lest
the reader, otherwise, may not detect the rambling parallel I have
herein drawn between a Northern and a Southern "poor white man."

President Lincoln, when he heard of the Battle of Middle Creek, said to
a distinguished officer, who happened to be with him,--

"Why did Garfield in two weeks do what would have taken one of you
Regular folks two months to accomplish?"

"Because he was not educated at West Point," answered the West-Pointer,
laughing.

"No," replied Mr. Lincoln. "That wasn't the reason. It was because, when
he was a boy, he had to work for a living."

But our good President, for once, was wrong,--for once, he did not get
at the core of the matter. Jordan, as well as Garfield, "had, when a
boy, to work for a living." The two men were, perhaps, of about equal
natural abilities,--both were born in log huts, both worked their own
way to manhood, and both went into the war consecrating their very lives
to their cou