Boots and saddles again at daybreak! By noon the column reached Green River, over the Kentucky line, where Morgan, even on his way down to join Johnston, had begun the operations which were to make him famous. No picket duty that infantry could do as well, for Morgan's cavalry! He wanted it kept out on the front or the flanks of an army, and as close as possible upon the enemy. Right away, there had been thrilling times for Dan in the Green River country—setting out at dark, chasing countrymen in Federal pay or sympathy, prowling all night around and among pickets and outposts; entrapping the unwary; taking a position on the line of retreat at daybreak, and turning leisurely back to camp with prisoners and information. How memories thronged! At this very turn of the road, Dan remembered, they had their first brush with the enemy. No plan of battle had been adopted, other than to hide on both sides of the road and send their horses to the rear.
"I think we ought to charge 'em," said Georgie Forbes, Chad's old enemy. Dan saw that his lip trembled, and, a moment later, Georgie, muttering something, disappeared.
The Yankees had come on, and, discovering them, halted. Morgan himself stepped out in the road and shot the officer riding at the head of the column. His men fell back without returning the fire, deployed and opened up. Dan recognized the very tree behind which he had stood, and again he could almost hear Richard Hunt chuckling from behind another close by.
"We would be in bad shape," said Richard Hunt, as the bullets whistled high overhead, "if we were in the tops of these trees instead of behind them." There had been no maneuvering, no command given among the Confederates. Each man fought his own fight. In ten minutes a horse-holder ran up from the rear, breathless, and announced that the Yankees were flanking. Every man withdrew, straightway, after his own fashion, and in his own time. One man was wounded and several were shot through the clothes.
"That was like a camp-meeting or an election row," laughed Morgan, when they were in camp.
"Or an affair between Austrian and Italian outposts," said Hunt.
A chuckle rose behind them. A lame colonel was limping past.
"I got your courier," he said.
"I sent no courier," said Morgan.
"It was Forbes who wanted to charge 'em," said Dan.