"Fall in?"
"No, thrown in."
Colonel Kenton raised his eyebrows higher than ever.
Harry sat down and told him the whole story, Colonel Kenton listening intently and rarely interrupting.
"It was great good fortune that the men on the raft came just at the right time," he said, when Harry had finished. "There are bad mountaineers and good mountaineers—Jarvis and his nephew represent one type and Skelly the other. Skelly hates us because we drove back his band when they attacked our house. In peaceful times we could have him hunted out and punished, but we cannot follow him into his mountains now. We shall be compelled to let this pass for the present, but as your life would not be safe here you must leave Frankfort, Harry."
"I can't go back to Pendleton," said the boy, "and stay there, doing nothing."
"I had no such purpose. I know that you are bound to be in active life, and I was already meditating a longer journey for you. Listen clearly to me, Harry. The fight here is about over, and we are going to fail. It is by the narrowest of margins, but still we will fail. We who are for the South know it with certainty. Kentucky will refuse to go out of the Union, and it is a great blow to us. I shall have to go back to Pendleton for a week or two and then I will take a command. But since you are bent upon service in the field, I want you to go to the East."
Harry's face flushed with pleasure. It was his dearest wish. Colonel Kenton, looking at him out of the corner of his eyes, smiled.
"I fancied that you would be quite willing to go," he said. "I had a letter this morning from a man who likes you well, Colonel Leonidas Talbot. He is at Richmond and he says that President Davis, his cabinet, and all the equipment of a capital will arrive there about the last of the month. The enemy is massing before Washington and also toward the West in the Maryland and Virginia mountains. A great battle is sure to be fought in the summer and he wants you on his staff. General Beauregard, whom you knew at Charleston, is to be in supreme command. Can you leave here in a day or two for Richmond?"
Harry's eyes were sparkling, and the flush was still in his face.