supported by a body of fifty rangers and one hundred and fifty light infantry. Every precaution against surprise was taken. Late one afternoon, however, the main body wavered with a sudden shock. The news came along the line. The Cherokees were upon them--upon the flank? No; in force fiercely assaulting the rear-guard. It was as Grant had feared impossible in these narrow defiles to avail himself of his strength, to face about, to form, to give battle. The advance was ordered to continue steadily onward,--difficult indeed, with the sound of the musketry and shouting from the rear, now louder, now fainter, as the surges of attack ebbed and flowed. A strong party was detached to reinforce the rear-guard. But again and again the Cherokees made a spirited dash, seeking to cut off the beef herd, fighting almost in the open, with as definite and logical a military plan of destroying the army by capturing its supplies in that wild country, hundreds of miles from adequate succor, as if devised by men trained in all the theories of war. “The Lord made him--” muttered Ronald MacDonnell, in uncertainty, recognizing the coherence of this military maneuver, and said no more. Whether or not his theory was reduced to that simple incontrovertible proposition, thus modified by the soldier-like demonstration on the supply train, his cogitations were cut short by more familiar ideas, when in command of thirty-two picked men, he was ordered to make a detour through the defiles of a narrow adjacent ravine, and, issuing suddenly thence, seek to fall upon the flank of the enemy and surprise, rout, and pursue him. This was the kind of thing, that with all his limitations, Ronald MacDonnell most definitely understood. This set a-quiver, with keenest sensitiveness, every fiber of his phlegmatic nature, called out every working capacity of his slow, substantial brains, made his quiet pulses bound. He looked the men over strictly as they dressed their ranks, and then he stepped swiftly forward toward them, for it was the habit to speak a few words of encouragement to the troops about to enter on any extra-hazardous duty, so daunting seemed the very sight of the Cherokees and the sound of their blood-curdling whoops. “Hech, callants!” he cried, in his simple joy; and so full of valiant elation was the exclamation that its spirit flared up amongst the wild “petticoat-men,” who cheered as lustily as if they had profited by the best of logic and the most finely flavored eloquence. Ronald MacDonnell felt that he had acquitted himself well in the usual way, and was under the impression that he had made a speech to the troops.