"I know that Colonel Newcomb's eyes are turning in that direction,"
continued Dick. "He's a war-horse, he is, and he'd like to get into the
thick of it."

"You're his favorite aide," said the calculating young Vermonter. "Can't
you sow those western seeds in his mind and keep on sowing them? The
fact that you are from this western battle ground will give more weight
to what you say. You do this, and I'll wager that within a week the
Colonel will induce the President to send the whole regiment to the
Mississippi."

"Can you reduce your prediction to a mathematical certainty?" asked
Dick, a twinkle appearing in his eye.

"No, I can't do that," replied Warner, with an answering twinkle,
"but you're the very fellow to influence Colonel Newcomb's mind. 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."

"Not much, sir," replied Dick. "My home is much further west in a
country very different both in its own character and that of its people.
But I have been