The winter
air on the mountains is powerful nippin' an' your blood needs warmin'
often."

The boys and the sergeant obeyed him literally and with energy. Jarvis
sat by approvingly, taking an occasional bite or drink with them.
Meanwhile they gathered valuable information from him. A Northern
commander named Garfield had defeated the Southern forces under Humphrey
Marshall in a smart little battle at a place called Middle Creek. Dick
knew this Humphrey Marshall well. He lived at Louisville and was a great
friend of his uncle, Colonel Kenton. He had been a brilliant and daring
cavalry officer in the Mexican War, doing great deeds at Buena
Vista, but now he was elderly and so enormously stout that he lacked
efficiency.

Jarvis added that after their defeat at Middle Creek the Southerners had
gathered their forces on or near the Cumberland River about Mill Spring
and that they had ten thousand men. Thomas with a strong Northern force,
coming all the way from the central part of the state, was already deep
in the mountains, preparing to meet him.

"Remember," said Jarvis, "that I ain't takin' no sides in this war
myself. If people come along an' ask me to tell what I know I tell it to
'em, be they Yank or Reb. Now, I wish good luck to you, Mr. Mason, an' I
wish the same to your cousin, Mr. Kenton."

Dick, Warner and the sergeant finished the refreshments and rose for
the return journey. They thanked Jarvis, and when they saw that he would
take no pay, they did not insist, knowing that it would offend him.
Dick said good-bye to the ancient woman and once again she rose, put her
hands on his shoulders and looked into his eyes.

"Paul Cotter was a good man," she said, "and you who have his blood in
your veins are good, too. I can see it in something that lies back in
your eyes."

She said not another word, but sat down in the chair and stared once
more into the coals, dreaming of the far day when the great borderers
saved her and others like her from the savages, and thinking little of
the mighty war that raged at the base of her hills.

The boys and the sergeant rode fast on the return trail. They knew that
Major Hertford would push forward at all speed to join Thomas, whom they
could now locate without much difficulty. Jarvis and Ike had resumed
their fence-mending, but when the trees hid the valley from them a
mighty, rolling song came to the ears of Dick, Warner and the sergeant:

They bore him away when the da