"Your faith is strong, M'sieur!"
"It's not faith—we know. One Southerner can whip three Yankees any day."
"But suppose it should turn out that he had to whip five or six or a dozen?"
"Don't you think these fellows could do it?"
Socola hesitated. It was a shame to pull down a faith that could remove mountains. He shrugged his slender shoulders and a pensive look stole over his face. He seemed to be talking to himself.
"Your President tells me that his soldiers will do all that pluck and muscle, endurance and dogged courage, dash and red-hot patriotism can accomplish. And yet his view is not sanguine. A sad undertone I caught in his voice. He says your war will be long and bloody—"
"Yes—I know," Dick broke in, "but nobody agrees with him. We'll show old Jeff what we can do, if he'll just give us one chance—that's all we ask—just one chance. Read that editorial in the Richmond Examiner—"
He thrust a copy of the famous yellow journal of the South into Socola's hand and pointed to a marked paragraph:
"From mountain top and valleys to the shores of the seas there is one wild shout of fierce resolve to capture Washington City at all and every human hazard!"