"That _we_ surrendered, we, the Missourians, the flower of 'em all? Now s'pose you just wait till Joe Shelby gets back to us in Arkansas, after that conference with the other generals? Then you'll see what _he_ does. He proclaims things, on wall paper. The Missouri Cavalry Division will march to Shrevepoht, will depose Smith for good, will head off the surrender, will lead the other divisions on to Mexico. And we started to do it too. And then, and then--it rained. Rained, sir, till our trains and guns were mired, and we couldn't budge! And all the time we knew that regiment after regiment was stacking arms off there at Shrevepoht. Did Little Joe rave? Opened Job his mouth? He did. His fluency gave the rain pointers. I sho'ly absorbed some myself, me, that have language tanks of my own. Well, I reckon all our hearts pretty near broke. But we had our Missouri general and our Missouri governor, and the Old Brigade just decided to come along anyhow. And we're a coming, Din, we're a coming!" Driscoll's face went blank. He thought of the scant welcome his homeless comrades would get. But Mr. Boone did not notice. He had only stretched his canvas, a big one, and there was a picture to paint. His long body began to straighten out, and his eyes glowed. From Xenophon to Irving's Astoria, from Hannibal crossing the Alps to Marching Through Georgia, he ransacked both romance and the classics for adequate tints, but in vain. The colors would have to be of his own mixing. "Din Driscoll," he began solemnly, "_you_ know that devil breed? Of coh'se, you're one of 'em. You're a chunk of brimstone, yourself. And you'll maybe rec'lect they did some fighting off and on. There was that raw company, f'r instance--boys, hardly a one broke in his yoke of oxen yet--and they hadn't even gotten their firearms, but they took a battery with their naked hands, and got themselves all tangled up in the fiery woof of death. But you'll not be rec'lecting that that there Brigade ever _lost_ a gun. And those raids, Din, back into Missouri, a handful back into the Federal country, when men dozed and dropped from their saddles and still did not wake up, and some went clean daft for want of sleep, and fighting steady all around the clock too, fair and square over into Kansas! And there was the night they buried eight hundred!" In all this Daniel might have said "We," but reportorial modesty forbade.