“We will cross that river,” said he, “when we come to it. But why, Major, should you and I continue whirling flails over this old straw? It was between us most thoroughly threshed last evening. I think you are right about the town, however, and that's why I'm waiting now in my apartment. Mud or no mud, I would else be in the saddle for a morning ride. I'm in momentary hope of visitation by a delegation of society Redsticks, who, I understand, connive a descent upon me. They propose at the coming pow-wow to demand my Eaton intentions, and to make protest against them should their most worshipful fancy disapprove.” The term “Redsticks,” which the General employed, was a kind of border slang and the name given to the Creek hostiles in Weatherford's war. “You must stand to my back, Major, when the enemy arrives.” This, with a glance of humor which showed the General as not attaching vast emphasis to the invasion or what might grow from it. “I will abide the shock of your Redsticks' charge,” I said, smiling with him, “unless they bring a reserve of women to the field. With the first dire swish of warlike crinoline I shall abandon you to the fate you've invited. I have stood to odds; but my courage is not proof against an angry woman.” The General beamed in his droll fashion and, shifting our ground of talk, said he had letters to write and needed my help. It may as well be known, for soon or late it is bound to escape into notice, that I wrote most of the General's letters. He was a perilous hand with a pen, and no more a speller than a poet. But there would be no letters written that day; for when we were in the very act and article of beginning, Augustus came in with a card. “Ah! Colonel Towson, U. S. A.,” read the General. “Show him up.” This last to Augustus. “The Redsticks would seem to have dwindled to one,” observed the General, turning to me. “This Colonel Towson was to be their spokesman. Now he comes alone. He is a very brave or a very ignorant man.” And the General sniffed dangerously, and yet in manner comic, as recognizing the elements of a farce. Colonel Towson, I must needs say, was a poor feature of a man, with a trivial face in which the great expression was a noble opinion of himself. He was of the cavalry, as I judged by the facings on his regimentals, for our visitor appeared in full uniform, and for part of his regalia dragged a clattering saber and wore fierce spurs to his heels. Plainly he was one of your egregious fops; and his breast was trussed outward and upward with the fullness of a pigeon's by dint of some vain contrivance inside his garments. As he brought his heels together, and stood with a deal of splendor just inside the door, the General ran him over with questioning eye that took in everything from the wax on his moustache to the gilt on his spurs. “What do you want, sir?” demanded the General, as blunt as a hammer. “I am Colonel Towson, Mr. President; the paymaster of the forces.”