“Lord sake, Allan, I didn’t mean to write like this! I know you’ve got your end to bear. Tom isn’t really so sick, and I’m jest as right as ever I was! The sun’s shining and the birds are singing, and the yellow cat’s stretching himself, and the gourd vine’s got a lot of flowers, and I bet you’d like to hear Thunder Run this minute! Steve Dagg’s still here and limping—when he thinks anybody’s looking. Rest of the time he uses both feet. He’s making up to Christianna Maydew—” Allan’s hand closed on the paper. “Steve Dagg making up to Christianna Maydew! Why—damn him—” He was not a swearing man, but he swore now, rising from the ground to do so. He did not pause to analyze his feeling. A cool-blooded, quiet-natured man, he found himself suddenly wild with wrath. He with the balance of the Sixty-fifth had fully recognized Steve Dagg as the blot on their ’scutcheon—but personally, the blot had until now only amused and disgusted him. Quite suddenly he found the earth too small for both Allan Gold and Stephen Dagg. Standing in the deep and narrow ravine and looking upward he had a vision. He saw Thunder Run Mountain, and high on the comb of it, the log house of the Maydews. He saw the ragged mountain garden sloping down, and the ragged mountain field. All about was a kind of violet mist. It parted and he saw Christianna standing in the doorway. Allan Gold sat down upon a stone beside the brook. He leaned forward, his clasped hands hanging below his knees. The clear, dark water gave him back his face and form. He sat so, very still, for some minutes, then he drew a long, long breath. “I have been,” he said, “all kinds of a fool.” Sairy’s letter offered but a few more words. He read them through, folded the paper thoughtfully and carefully, and laid it between the leaves of the Testament. Then he stood up, carefully extinguished with his foot the fire of leaves and twigs, took his rifle, and turned his face toward the Shenandoah. Thirty-six hours later found him waiting, a little east of Front Royal, for the column. It appeared, winding through the woods, Ewell riding at the head, with him Jubal Early and J.B. Gordon. Allan stood out from the ferny margin of the wood and saluted. “Hello!” said Old Dick. “It’s the best scout in the service!” Allan gave his information. “General, I’ve been talking to an old farmer and his wife, refugeeing from the Millwood section. They believed there was a considerable Yankee force at Berryville. So I went on for a few miles, and got three small boys and sent them into Berryville on a report that there was a circus in town. They got the news all right and came back with it. McRennolds is there with something like fifteen hundred men and a considerable amount of stores.”