Drew looked up. "Startin' back, Sarge?"

"Heard talk," Wilkins admitted. "Most of the blue bellies in these parts
are turnin' lines to aim square at us. We can't take on all of Sherman's
bully boys--"

"Got him riled, though, ain't we? All right." Kirby was energetically
fanning the top of his steaming cup with his free hand. "Git this down
to warm m' toes, Sarge, an' I'll stick them same toes in the stirrups
an' jingle off. Come on, Drew, no man never joined up with the army to
git hisself a comfortable life...."

Certainly that last statement of the Texan's was proven correct during
the next six days. A feint toward the Yankee garrison at Huntsville
occupied the enemy until the wagon train and artillery moved on to the
Tennessee River. And along its northern banks, Buford's Scouts ranged.
Already high for the season the waters were still rising. And all the
transportation they could collect were three ferry boats at Florence and
a few skiffs, not enough to serve all the Confederate force pushing for
that escape route.

Athens, which Forrest had occupied on the upswing of the raid, was
already back in Union hands, and the blue forces were closing in, in a
countrywide sweep, backing the gray cavalry against the river.

By the third of October Buford had the boats in action, ferrying across
men, equipment, and artillery in a steady stream of night-and-day oar
labor. The stout General, mounted on a big mule, a large animal to carry
a large man, gave the scouts new orders.

"Try downriver, boys. We're in a pinchers here, and they may be goin' to
nip us--hard!" He rolled a big cheroot from a Yankee commissary store
between his teeth, watching the wind whip the surface of the river into
good-sized waves about the laboring boats. "Anything usable below
Florence ... we want to know about it, and quick!"

Wilkins led them out at a steady trot. "We'll take a look around
Newport. Rough going, but I think I remember a place."

However, the possibilities of Wilkins' "place" did not seem too
promising to Drew when they came out on a steep bluff some miles down
the Tennessee.

"This is a heller of a river," Kirby expressed his opinion forcibly.
"Always spittin' back in an hombre's face. We've had plenty of trouble
with it before."

They were on a bank above a slough which was not more than two hundred
feet wide. And beyond that was an island thickly overgrown with cane,
oak, and hickory. The upper end of that was sandy