But I'm a Kentuckian by right of birth just
as you are, and I asked to be assigned to the regiment raised in the
region from which we came."
"And mighty welcome you are, too," said Dick, offering his hand.
"You belong with us, and we'll stick together on this campaign."
The two youths, one officer and one private, became fast friends in a
moment. Events move swiftly in war. Both now felt the great engines
throbbing faster beneath them, and the flotilla, well into the mouth of
the Ohio, was leaving the Mississippi behind them. But the Ohio here
for a distance is apparently the mightier stream, and they gazed with
interest and a certain awe at the vast yellow sheet enclosed by shores,
somber in the gray garb of winter. It was the beginning of February,
and cold winds swept down from the Illinois prairies. Cairo had been
left behind and there was no sign of human habitation. Some wild fowl,
careless of winter, flew over the stream, dipped toward the water,
and then flew away again.
As far as the eye was concerned the wilderness circled about them and
enclosed them. The air was cold and flakes of snow dropped upon the
decks and the river, but were gone in an instant. The skies were an
unbroken sheet of gray. The scene so lonely and desolate contained a
majesty that impressed them all, heightened for these youths by the
knowledge that many of them were going on a campaign from which they
would never return.
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