“No! I hain't swallowed no centerboard, nor have I the belly-ache--blast your chucklehead,” roared Abe, as he sprang to his feet, rushed to the brook, scooped up some water in his hands, and rinsed his mouth out energetically. “Well, what can it be, then? You surely ain't doing all that for fun.” “No, I ain't doing it for fun,” shouted Abe, angrier still; “and nobody but a double-and twisted idiot would ask such a fool question. I was paying so much attention to your dumbed story that I chewed up a green persimmon--one that hadn't been touched by the frost. It's puckered my mouth so that I will never get it straight again. It's worse than a pound of alum and a gallon of tanbark juice mixed together. O, laugh, if you want to--that's just what I'd expect from you. That's about all the sense you've got.” --- There was enough excitement in camp to prevent any danger of ennui. The probability of battle gave the daily drills an interest that they never could gain in Ohio. The native Rebels were numerous and defiant, and kept up such demonstrations as led to continual apprehensions of an attack. New regiments came in constantly, and were received with enthusiasm. Kentucky and East Tennessee Loyalists, tall, gaunt, long-haired and quaint-spoken, but burning with enthusiasm for the Government of their fathers, flocked to the camp, doffed their butternut garb, assumed the glue, and enrolled themselves to defend the Union. At length it became evident that the Rebel “Army of Liberation” was really about crossing the Cumberland Mountains to drive out the “Yankees” and recover possession of Kentucky for the Southern Confederacy. Outposts were thrown out in all directions to gain the earlies possible intelligence of the progress of the movement, and to make such resistance to it as might be possible. One of these outposts was stationed at Wildcat Gap, an inexpressibly wild and desolate region, sixty miles from Camp Dick Robinson, where the road entering Kentucky from Tennessee at Cumberland Gap crosses the Wildcat range of mountains. One day the startling news reached camp that an overwhelming Rebel force under Gen. Zollicoffer was on the eve of attacking the slender garrison of Wildcat Gap. The “assembly” was sounded, and the regiment, hastily provided with rations and ammunition, was hurried forward to aid in the defense of the threatened outpost. Nature, as if in sympathy with the gathering storm of war, ceased her smiling. The blue, bending skies were transformed intoa scowling, leaden-visaged canopy, from which fell a chill incessant rain.