"No doubt of it; but it would be hardly consistent with the orders I have just received for me to delay in this section to carry out your idea. We are more needed elsewhere than here."
"Then we are to march on a sort of roving commission to the eastward, where the Confederates are breaking through from Tennessee, it appears."
"It amounts to that, though my orders are very explicit," replied the major, as he led the way back to the narrow pass where the company had been halted. "The situation here is not so bad as it was. We have saved the bridge; and the Home Guards which arrived there last night are described as consisting of good men, who will be mustered into a Kentucky regiment as soon as circumstances permit; and Captain Woodward, who commands it, is an old soldier, and likely to be made a colonel."
"Then the bridge will be safe."
"It can be better defended by infantry than by cavalry alone; both would do better than either. Captain Dingfield and his bridge-burners have been sent to the north, and I have no doubt he intends to join them there. To follow him would keep me some days, if not a week, from the more pressing duty assigned to me," reasoned the commander.
"I understand it better now," added the captain.
"I have been informed that troops have been sent to the vicinity of Munfordville, in Hart County, where the railroad bridge has been partly destroyed, though a temporary structure has been built to replace it. I think Dingfield means to go there, and complete the work others failed to finish."
"I hope we shall find the guerillas, or whatever they are; and I believe our boys will soon make an end of them," said the captain with enthusiasm. "Your orders permit you to go where you please, Major."
"They do; for it was not possible for those charged with the protection of the State to inform me definitely where the guerillas were to be found, as they are continually changing their locality, though I have some papers to aid me. I am not a little surprised at the confidence placed in me by my superiors, who send me on a mission with no definite instructions."
"All the details of the fights at Riverlawn and its vicinity are known to them; for I have taken care that they should not be ignorant in regard to you."