doing all that for fun."

"No, I ain't doing it for fun," shouted Abe, angrier still; "and nobody
but a double-and twisted idiot would ask such a fool question. I was
paying so much attention to your dumbed story that I chewed up a green
persimmon--one that hadn't been touched by the frost. It's puckered
my mouth so that I will never get it straight again. It's worse than a
pound of alum and a gallon of tanbark juice mixed together. O, laugh, if
you want to--that's just what I'd expect from you. That's about all the
sense you've got."

----

There was enough excitement in camp to prevent any danger of ennui. The
probability of battle gave the daily drills an interest that they never
could gain in Ohio. The native Rebels were numerous and defiant, and
kept up such demonstrations as led to continual apprehensions of
an attack. New regiments came in constantly, and were received with
enthusiasm. Kentucky and East Tennessee Loyalists, tall, gaunt,
long-haired and quaint-spoken, but burning with enthusiasm for the
Government of their fathers, flocked to the camp, doffed their butternut
garb, assumed the glue, and enrolled themselves to defend the Union.

At length it became evident that the Rebel "Army of Liberation"
was really about crossing the Cumberland Mountains to drive out
the "Yankees" and recover possession of Kentucky for the Southern
Confederacy.

Outposts were thrown out in all directions to gain the earlies
possible intelligence of the progress of the movement, and to make
such resistance to it as might be possible. One of these outposts was
stationed at Wildcat Gap, an inexpressibly wild and desolate region,
sixty miles from Camp Dick Robinson, where the road entering Kentucky
from Tennessee at Cumberland Gap crosses the Wildcat range of mountains.

One day the startling news reached camp that an overwhelming Rebel force
under Gen. Zollicoffer was on the eve of attacking the slender garrison
of Wildcat Gap. The "assembly" was sounded, and the regiment, hastily
provided with rations and ammunition, was hurried forward to aid in the
defense of the threatened outpost.

Nature, as if in sympathy with the gathering storm of war, ceased
her smiling. The blue, bending skies were transformed into a scowling,
leaden-visaged canopy, from which fell a chill incessant rain.

When the order to prepare for the march came, Glen, following the
example of his comrades, packed three days' cooked rations in his
haversa