Dick learned, too, that the Southern force operating against Thomas, while actively led by Zollicoffer, was under the nominal command of one of his own Kentucky Crittendens. Here he saw again how terribly his beloved state was divided, like other border states. General Crittenden's father was a member of the Federal Congress at Washington, and one of his brothers was a general also, but on the other side. But he was to see such cases over and over again, and he was to see them to a still greater and a wholesale degree, when the First Maryland regiment of the North and the First Maryland regiment of the South, recruited from the same district, should meet face to face upon the terrible field of Antietam. But Antietam was far in the future, and Dick's mind turned from the cases of brother against brother to the problems of the icy wilderness through which they were moving, in a more or less uncertain manner. Sometimes they were sent on false trails, but their loyal mountaineers brought them back again. They also found volunteers, and Major Hertford's little force swelled from three hundred to six hundred. In the main, the mountaineers were sympathetic, partly through devotion to the Union, and partly through jealousy of the more prosperous lowlanders. One day Major Hertford sent Dick, Warner, and Sergeant Whitley, ahead to scout. He had recognized the ability of the two lads, and also their great friendship for Sergeant Whitley. It seemed fitting to him that the three should be nearly always together, and he watched them with confidence, as they rode ahead on the icy mountain trail and then disappeared from sight. Dick and his friends had learned, at mountain cabins which they had passed, that the country opened out further on into a fine little valley, and when they reached the crest of a hill somewhat higher than the others, they verified the truth of the statement. Before them lay the coziest nook they had yet seen in the mountains, and in the center of it rose a warm curl of smoke from the chimney of a house, much superior to that of the average mountaineer. The meadows and corn lands on either side of a noble creek were enclosed in good fences. Everything was trim and neat. The three rode down the slope toward the house, but halfway to the bottom they reined in their ponies and listened. Some one was singing. On the thin wintry air a deep mellow voice rose and they distinctly heard the words: Soft o'er the fountain, ling'ring falls the southern moon, Far o'er the mountain breaks the day too soon. In thy dark eyes' splendor, where the warm light loves to dwell, Weary looks yet tender, speak their fond farewell. 'Nita, Juanita! Ask thy soul if we should part, 'Nita, Juanita! Lean thou on my heart.