Chapter IX. On the March - Page 2

make us 'leven hundred clean out 'leven thousand Rebs," growled Abe Bolton.

"Suppose the Colonel should imagine himself another Leonidas, and us his Spartan band, and want us to die around him, and start another Thermopylae down her in the mountains, some place," suggested Kent Edwards, "you would cheerfully pass in your checks along with the rest, so as to make the thing an entire success, wouldn't you?"

"The day I'm sent below, I'll take a pile of Rebs along to keep me company," answered Abe, surlily.

Glen, standing in the rear of his company in his place as file-closer, listened to these words, and saw in the dim distance and on the darkling heights the throngs of fierce enemies and avalanches of impeding dangers as are likely to oppress the imagination of a young soldier at such unfavorable moments. The conflict and carnage seemed so imminent that he half expected it to begin that very night, and he stiffened his sinews for the shock.

Lieutenant Alspaugh also heard, studied over the unwelcome possibilities shrouded in the gathering gloom of the distance, and regretted that he had not, before crossing the Ohio, called the Surgeon's attention to some premonitory symptoms of rheumatism, which he felt he might desire to develop into an acute attack in the event of danger assuming an unpleasant proximity.

But as no Rebels appeared on the sweeping semi-circle of hills that shut in Convington on the south, he concluded to hold his disability in abeyance, by a strong effort of the will, until the regiment had penetrated farther into the enemy's country.

For days the regiment marched steadily on through the wonderfully lovely Blue Grass Region, toward the interior of the State, without coming into the neighborhood of any organized body of the Rebels.

Glen's first tremors upon crossing the Ohio subsided so as to permit him to thoroughly enjoy the beauties of the scenery, and the pleasures of out-door life in a region so attractive at that season of the year.

The turnpike, hard and smooth as a city pavement, wound over and around romantic hills--hills crowned with cedar and evergreen laurel, and scarred with cliffs and caverns. It passed through forests, aromatic with ripening nuts and changing leaves, and glorious in the colors of early Autumn. Then its course would traverse farms of gracefully undulating acres, bounded by substantial stone-walls, marked by winding streams of pure spring water, centering around great roomy houses, with huge outside chimneys, and broad piazzas, and with a train of humble negro cabins in the rear. The horses were proud stepping thoroughbreds, the women comely and spirited, the men dignified and athletic, and all seemed well-fed and comfortable. The names of the places along the route recalled to Harry's memory all he had ever read of the desperate battles and massacres and single-handed encounters