“No, I destroyed it. I didn't want it bobbing up some time or other to cause either of us trouble. A man I know at home says he's kept out of a lot of trouble by 'never writin' nothin' to nobody.' And if you do write a letter the next best thing is to burn it as quick as you can.”
“If my eyes tell the truth, and they do,” said Pennington, “here comes a short, thick man riding a long, thick horse and he—the man, not the horse—bears a startling resemblance to our friend, ally, guide and sometime mentor, Sergeant Daniel Whitley.”
“Yes, it's the sergeant,” said Dick, looking down into the valley, “and I'm glad he's joining us. Do you know, boys, I often think these veteran sergeants know more than some of our generals.”
“It's not an opinion. It's a fact,” said Warner. “Hi, there, sergeant! Here are your friends! Come up and make the same empty report that we've got ready for the colonel.”
Sergeant Daniel Whitley looked at the three lads, and his face brightened. He had a good intellect under his thatch of hair, and a warm heart within his strong body. The boys, although lieutenants, and he only a sergeant in the ranks, treated him usually as an equal and often as a superior.
Colonel Winchester's regiment and the remains of Colonel Newcomb's Pennsylvanians had been sent east after the defeat of the Union army at the Seven Days, and were now with Pope's Army of Virginia, which was to hold the valley and also protect Washington. Grant's success at Shiloh had been offset by McClellan's failure before Richmond, and the President and his Cabinet at Washington were filled with justifiable alarm. Pope was a western man, a Kentuckian, and he had insisted upon having some of the western troops with him.
The sergeant rode his horse slowly up the slope, and joined the lads over whom he watched like a father.
“And what have the hundred eyes of Argus beheld?” asked Warner.
“Argus?” said the sergeant. “I don't know any such man. Name sounds queer, too.”
“He belongs to a distant and mythical past, sergeant, but he'd be mighty useful if we had him here. If even a single one of his hundred eyes were to light on Stonewall Jackson, it would be a great service.”