ing, Dixie climbed the Union bank
of the Ohio and trotted into the recruiting camp of the Fourth Ohio
Cavalry. The first man Chad saw was Harry Dean--grave, sombre,
taciturn, though he smiled and thrust out his hand eagerly. Chad's eyes
dropped to the sergeant's stripes on Harry's sleeves, and again Harry
smiled.
"You'll have 'em yourself in a week. These fellows ride like a lot of
meal-bags over here. Here's my captain," he added, in a lower voice.
A pompous officer rode slowly up. He pulled in his horse when he saw
Chad.
"You want to join the army?"
"Yes," said Chad.
"All right. That's a fine horse you've got."
Chad said nothing.
"What's his name?"
"HER name is Dixie."
The captain stared. Some soldiers behind laughed in a smothered
fashion, sobering their' faces quickly when the captain turned upon
them, furious.
"Well, change her name!"
"I'll not change her name," said Chad, quietly.
"What!" shouted the officer. "How dare you--" Chad's eyes looked
ominous.
"Don't you give any orders to me--not yet. You haven't the right; and
when you have, you can save your breath by not giving that one. This
horse comes from Kentucky, and so do I; her name will stay Dixie as
long as I straddle her, and I propose to straddle her until one of us
dies, or,"--he smiled and nodded across the river--"somebody over there
gets her who won't object to her name as much as you do."
The astonished captain's lips opened, but a quiet voice behind
interrupted him:
"Never mind, Captain." Chad turned and saw a short, thick-set man with
a stubbly brown beard, whose eyes were twinkling, though his face was
grave. "A boy who wants to fight for the Union, and insists on calling
his horse Dixie, must be all right. Come with me, my lad."
As Chad followed, he heard the man saluted as Colonel Grant, but he
paid no heed. Few people at that time did pay heed to the name of
Ulysses Grant.
CHAPTER 22.
MORGAN'S MEN
Boots and saddles at daybreak!
Over the border, in Dixie, two videttes in gray trot briskly from out a
leafy woodland, side by side, and looking with keen eyes right and
left; one, erect, boyish, bronzed; the other, slouching, bearded,
huge--the boy, Daniel Dean; the man, Rebel Jerry Dillon, one of the
giant twins.
Fifty yards behind them emerges a single picket; after him come three
more videttes, the same distance apart. Fifty yards behind the last
rides "the advance"--a guard of twenty-five p
|