The thrifty hillside farmers had made many sacrifices already, but they responded.
An army of cattle began to form. It increased. Nearly every farm could spare one or more beeves, armed with fat flesh and warm hides.
So it started, armed, as it were, with horns, Dennis leading them under officers.
Three hundred miles it marched, gathering force along the way.
It entered at last the dreary wilderness of the suffering camp. The men saw it coming. There went up a great shout, which ran along the camp, and went up from even the hospital huts:
“The Lord bless Brother Jonathan!”
The officers hailed the cattle-drivers.
“Should we win our independence,” said an officer, “what will we not owe to Brother Jonathan and his army of cattle from the provision State!”
Dennis froze with the others that winter.
In the spring he returned, moneyless, fameless. Half of his face was black, and one hand had gone. The explosion of a powder-wagon which he had been forcing on toward Washington’s army had caused the change in his appearance, but it was rugged work that Dennis O’Hay had done during that past winter for the army.