udden I picked up the baby, and ran to the pasture-bar;
"Kentuck!" I called; "Kentucky!" She knew me ever so far!
I led her down the gully that turns off there to the right,
And tied her to the bushes; her head was just out of sight.

As I ran back to the log-house, at once there came a sound--
The ring of hoofs, galloping hoofs, trembling over the ground--
Coming into the turnpike out from the White Woman Glen--
Morgan, Morgan the raider, and Morgan's terrible men.

As near they drew and nearer, my heart beat fast in alarm!
But still I stood in the doorway, with baby on my arm.
They came; they passed; with spur and whip in haste they sped
along--
Morgan, Morgan the raider, and his band six hundred strong.

Weary they looked and jaded, riding through night and through
day;
Pushing on east to the river, many long miles away,
To the border-strip where Virginia runs up into the West,
To ford the Upper Ohio before they could stop to rest.

On like the wind they hurried, and Morgan rode in advance;
Bright were his eyes like live coals, as he gave me a sideways
glance;
And I was just breathing freely, after my choking pain,
When the last one of the troopers suddenly drew his rein.

Frightened I was to death, sir; I scarce dared look in his face,
As he asked for a drink of water, and glanced around the place:
I gave him a cup, and he smiled--'twas only a boy, you see;
Faint and worn; with dim blue eyes, and he'd sailed on the
Tennessee.

Only sixteen he was, sir--a fond mother's only son--
Off and away with Morgan before his life had begun!
The damp drops stood on his temples; drawn was the boyish
mouth;
And I thought me of the mother waiting down in the South!

O, pluck was he to the backbone; and clear grit through and
through;
Boasted and bragged like a trooper; but the big words wouldn't
do;
The boy was dying sir, dying, as plain as plain could be,
Worn out by his ride with Morgan up from the Tennessee.

But, when I told the laddie that I too was from the South,
Water came into his dim eyes, and quivers around his mouth;
"Do you know the Blue-Grass country?" he wistfully began to say;
Then swayed like a willow sapling, and fainted dead away.

I had him into the log-house, and worked and brought him to;
I fed him, and I coaxed him, as I thought his mother'd do;