The two met like old friends.
“Ho! Colonel Rosenthal! Happy to see you. Heard of your promotion this morning. Allow me to congratulate—no, not you, but—the regiment, on the acquisition of so brave a soldier and able an officer. I wish my company belonged to your regiment,” said the cavalry officer.
“Thanks, Major O’Neale. But—what’s out?”
“What’s out? The guerrillas. They are swarming into this neighborhood like seven year locusts. Goldsborough’s guerrillas have made a raid upon a party of excursionists near the Point of Rocks, and robbed them of everything even to the clothes they stood up in—even to their sacred linen?”
“Yes, I heard of that. A squadron of cavalry from Fort W. is out after them, but they are encamped somewhere near the Black Bear’s Pass, far enough from here,” said Colonel Rosenthal.
“Ah! is that so? Then there is no chance of falling in with them hereabouts?”
“None in the world.”
“And the Free Sword has re-appeared!”
“He has joined issue with Goldsborough, and their forces are united.”
“Are you certain of that?”