. C. S. Tel. Dept."

Just about that time Chad Buford, in a Yankee hospital, was coming back
from the land of ether dreams. An hour later, the surgeon who had taken
Dan's bullet from his shoulder, handed him a piece of paper, black with
faded blood and scarcely legible.

"I found that in your jacket," he said. "Is it important?"

Chad smiled.

"No," he said. "Not now."

CHAPTER 25.

AFTER DAWS DILLON--GUERILLA

Once more, and for the last time, Chadwick Buford jogged along the
turnpike from the Ohio to the heart of the Bluegrass. He had filled his
empty shoulder-straps with two bars. He had a bullet wound through one
shoulder and there was a beautiful sabre cut across his right cheek. He
looked the soldier every inch of him; he was, in truth, what he looked;
and he was, moreover, a man. Naturally, his face was stern and
resolute, if only from habit of authority, but he had known no passion
during the war that might have seared its kindness; no other feeling
toward his foes than admiration for their unquenchable courage and
miserable regret that to such men he must be a foe.

Now, it was coming spring again--the spring of '64, and but one more
year of the war to come.

The capture of the Fourth Ohio by Morgan that autumn of '62 had given
Chad his long-looked-for chance. He turned Dixie's head toward the
foothills to join Wolford, for with Wolford was the work that he
loved--that leader being more like Morgan in his method and daring than
any other Federal cavalryman in the field behind him. In Kentucky, he
left the State under martial sway once more, and, thereafter, the
troubles of rebel sympathizers multiplied steadily, for never again was
the State under rebel control. A heavy hand was laid on every rebel
roof. Major Buford was sent to prison again. General Dean was in
Virginia, fighting, and only the fact that there was no man in the Dean
household on whom vengeance could fall, saved Margaret and Mrs. Dean
from suffering, but even the time of women was to come.

On the last day of '62, Murfreesboro was fought and the second great
effort of the Confederacy at the West was lost. Again Bragg withdrew.
On New Year's Day, '63, Lincoln freed the slaves--and no rebel was more
indignant than was Chadwick Buford. The Kentucky Unionists, in general,
protested: the Confederates had broken the Constitution, they said; the
Unionists were helping to maintain that contract and now the Federals
had broken the Con