“Never heard of him,” he replied. “Like as not he's one of the officers who resigned from the army after the Mexican War. There was so little to do then, and so little chance of promotion, that a lot of them quit to go into business. I suppose they'll all be coming back now.”
“I want to go out there,” said Dick. “It's my country, and the westerners at least are acting. But look at our army here! Bull Run was fought the middle of summer. Now it's nearly winter, and nothing has been done. We don't get out of sight of Washington. If I can get myself sent west I'm going.”
“And I'm going with you,” said Warner.
“Me, too,” said the sergeant.
“I know that Colonel Newcomb's eyes are turning in that direction,” continued Dick. “He's a war-horse, he is, and he'd like to get into the thick of it.”
“You're his favorite aide,” said the calculating young Vermonter. “Can't you sow those western seeds in his mind and keep on sowing them? The fact that you are from this western battle ground will give more weight to what you say. You do this, and I'll wager that within a week the Colonel will induce the President to send the whole regiment to the Mississippi.”
“Can you reduce your prediction to a mathematical certainty?” asked Dick, a twinkle appearing in his eye.
“No, I can't do that,” replied Warner, with an answering twinkle, “but you're the very fellow to influence Colonel Newcomb's mind. I'm a mathematician and I work with facts, but you have the glowing imagination that conduces to the creation of facts.”
“Big words! Grand words!” said the sergeant.
“Never let Colonel Newcomb forget the west,” continued Warner, not noticing the interruption. “Keep it before him all the time. Hint that there can be no success along the Mississippi without him and his regiment.”