found it here," said the Ohio boy, "and we found, too, a
tin cup chained to a staple driven into the stone. See, it's here still.
We haven't broken the chain. I suppose it belongs to some farmer close
by. The boys brought other tin cups and we drank so fast that the brook
itself became dry. The water never got any further than the pool. I
suppose it's just started again. Drink."

The boys drank deeply and gratefully. No such refreshing stream had ever
flowed down their throats before.

"Ohio," said Dick, "you're a lovely, dirty angel."

"I guess I am," said Ohio, "'cause I found the spring. It turned me from
an old man back to a boy again. Cold as ice, ain't it? I can tell you
why. This spring starts right at the North Pole, right under the pole
itself, dives away down into the earth, comes under Bering Sea and then
under British America, and then under the lakes, and then under Ohio,
and then under a part of Kentucky, and then comes out here especially to
oblige us, this being a dry season."

"I believe every word you say, Ohio," said Warner, "since your
statements are proved by the quality of the water. I could easily
demonstrate it as a mathematical proposition."

"Don't you pay any attention to him, Ohio," said Dick. "He's from
Vermont, and he's so full of big words that he's bound to get rid of
some of them."

"I'm not doubting you, Vermont," said Ohio. "As you believe every word I
said, I believe every word you said."

"There's nothing extraordinary about them things," said another Ohio
boy belonging to a different brigade, who was sitting near. "Do you know
that we swallowed a whole river coming down here? We began swallowing it
when we crossed the Ohio, just like a big snake swallowing a snake not
quite so big, taking down his head first, then keeping on swallowing
him until the last tip of his tail disappeared inside. It was a good big
stream when we started, water up to our knees, but we formed across it
in a line five hundred men deep and then began to drink as we marched
forward. Of course, a lot of water got past the first four hundred lines
or so, but the five hundredth always swallowed up the last drop."

"We marched against that stream for something like a hundred and fifty
miles. No water ever got past us. We left a perfectly dry bed behind.
Up in the northern part of the state not a drop of water came down the
river in a month. We followed it, or at least a lot of us did, clean
to its source i