nd his troops were
at present in the convoy of a madman--they found Loring seated on a log
beside a small fire and engaged in cooling in the snow a too-hot tin cup
of coffee. His negro servant busily toasted hardtack; a brigadier seated
on an opposite log was detailing, half fiercely, half plaintively, the
conditions under which his brigade was travelling. The two from Jackson
dismounted, crunched their way over the snow and saluted. The general
looked up. "Good-evening, gentlemen! Is that you, Stafford? Well, did
you do your prettiest--and did he respond?"

"Yes, sir, he responded," replied Stafford, with grimness. "But not by
me.--Major Cleave, sir, of his staff."

Cleave came forward, out of the whirling snow, and gave Jackson's
missive. It was so dull and dark a late afternoon that all things were
indistinct. "Give me a light here, Jupiter!" said Loring, and the negro
by the fire lit a great sliver of pine and held it like a torch above
the page. Loring read, and his face grew purple. With a suppressed oath
he sat a moment, staring at the paper, then with his one hand folded it
against his knee. His fingers shook, not with cold, but with rage. "Very
good, very good! That's what he says, isn't it, all the time? 'Very
good!' or is it 'Good, good!'" He felt himself growing incoherent,
pulled himself sharply together, and with his one hand thrust the paper
into his breast pocket. "It's all right, Stafford. Major Cleave, the
Army of the Kanawha welcomes you. Will you stay with us to-night, or
have you fifty miles to make ere dawn?"

Cleave, it appeared, had not fifty miles to make, but four. He must
report at the appointed bivouac. Loring tore with his one hand a leaf
from his pocket-book, found his pencil, and using a booted knee for a
table, wrote a line, folded and superscribed it. "This for General
Jackson. Ugh, what freezing weather! Sit down and drink a cup of coffee
before you go. You, too, Maury. Here, Jupiter! hot coffee. Major Cleave,
do you remember Aesop's fables?"

"Yes, sir,--a number of them."

"A deal of knowledge there of damned human nature! The frog that swelled
and swelled and thought himself an ox. Curious how your boyhood books
come back into your mind! Sit down, gentlemen, sit down! Reardon's got a
box of cigars tucked away somewhere or he isn't Reardon--"

Along the edge of the not-distant ravine other small fires had been
built. From the circle about one of these arose a quavering voice--a