Meanwhile league Poteet's baby had grown to be a thumping girl, and hardly a day passed that she did not accompany her father in his excursions. When the contending armies came in sight, Teague and his comrades spent a good deal of their time in watching them. Each force passed around an elbow of the mountain, covering a distance of nearly sixty miles, and thus for days and weeks this portentous panorama was spread out before these silent watchers. Surely never before did a little girl have two armies for her playthings. The child saw the movements of the soldiers, the glitter of the array, and the waving of the banners; she heard the dull thunder of the cannon, and the sharp rattle of the musketry. When the sun went down, and the camp-fire shone out, it seemed that ten thousand stars had fallen at her feet, and sometimes sweet strains of music stole upward on the wings of the night, and slipped heavenward through the sighing pines. The grey columns swung right and left, and slowly fell back; the blue columns swayed right and left, and slowly pressed forward--sometimes beneath clouds of sulphurous smoke, sometimes beneath heavy mists of rain, sometimes in the bright sunshine. They swung and swayed slowly out of sight, and Hog Mountain and Gullettsville were left at peace. The child grew and thrived. In the midst of a gaunt and sallow generation she shone radiantly beautiful. In some mysterious way she inherited the beauty, and grace, and refinement of a Frenchwoman. Merely as a phenomenon, she ought to have reminded league of his name and lineage; but Teague had other matters to think of. "Sis ain't no dirt-eater," he used to say, and to this extent only would he commit himself, his surroundings having developed in him that curious excess of caution and reserve which characterises his class. As for Puss Poteet, she sat and rocked herself and rubbed snuff, and regarded her daughter as one of the profound mysteries. She was in a state of perpetual bewilderment and surprise, equalled only by her apparent indifference. She allowed herself to be hustled around by Sis without serious protest, and submitted, as Teague did, to the new order of things as quietly as possible. Meanwhile the people in the valley were engaged in adjusting themselves to the changed condition of affairs. The war was over, but it had left some deep scars here and there, and those who had engaged in it gave their attention to healing these--a troublesome and interminable task, be it said, which by no means kept pace with the impatience of the victors, whipped into fury by the subtle but ignoble art of the politician. There was no lack of despair in the valley, but out of it all prosperity grew, and the promise of a most remarkable future. Behind the confusion of politics, of one sort and another, the spirit of Progress rose and shook her ambitious wings.