"Don't you and your family get lonesome here sometimes, Mr. Jones?" asked Harry.
"Never," replied the mountaineer. "You see I've had enough o' noise an' multitudes. More than once I've seen two hundred thousand men fightin', and I've heard the cannon roarin', days without stoppin'. I still git to dreamin' at night 'bout all them battles, an' when I awake, an' set up sudden like an' hear nothin' outside but the tricklin' o' the branch an' the wind in the leaves, I'm thankful that them four years are over, an' nobody is shootin' at nobody else. An' it's hard now an' then to b'lieve that they're really an' truly over."
"But how about Mrs. Jones?"
"She an' the baby stayed here four whole years without me, but we've got neighbors, though you can't see 'em fur the trees. Jest over the ridge lives her mother, an' down Jones' Creek, into which the branch runs, lives her married sister, an' my own father ain't more'n four miles away. The settlements are right thick 'roun' here, an' we hev good times."
Mrs. Jones nodded her emphatic assent.
"Which way do you-all 'low to be goin' tomorrow?" asked Jones.
"We think we'd better keep to the west," replied Colonel Talbot. "We've heard of a guerrilla band under two men, Slade and Skelly, who are making trouble to the southward."
"I've heard of 'em too," said Jones, "an' I reckon they're 'bout the meanest scum the war hez throwed up. The troops will be after 'em afore long, an' will clean 'em out, but I guess they'll do a lot o' damage afore then. You gen'lemen will be wise to stick to your plan, an' keep on toward the west."
They departed the next morning, taking with them the memory of a very pleasant meeting, and once more pursued their way through the wilderness. Harry, despite inquiries at every possible place, heard nothing more of his father, and concluded that, after the surrender, he must have gone at once to Kentucky, expecting his son to come there by another way.
But the reports of Slade and Skelly were so numerous and so sinister that they made a complete change of plan. The colonels, St. Clair and Langdon, would not try to go direct to South Carolina, but the whole party would cling together, ride to Kentucky, and then those who lived farther south could return home chiefly by rail. It seemed, on the whole, much the wiser way, and, curving back a little to the north, they entered by and by the high mountains on the line between Virginia and Kentucky. Other returning soldiers had joined them and their party now numbered thirty brave, well-armed men.