The colonel held himself very erect, and spoke in a firm proud tone. He would inspire a high spirit into the hearts of these boys of his, and in doing so he inspired a great deal of it into his own. He looked back at his column, which still limped bravely after him. It was too dark for him to see the faces of the lads, but he knew that none of them expressed despair. "That's the way, my brave fellows," he said. "I know we'll find a warm and comfortable cove higher up. We'll sleep there, and tomorrow we'll start toward Lee. When we join him we'll whip Grant, come back here and rout Sheridan and then go on and take Washington." "Where I mean yet, sir, to sleep in the White House with my boots on," said the irrepressible Happy. "You are a youth frivolous of speech, Thomas Langdon," said Colonel Leonidas Talbot gravely, "but I have always known that beneath this superficiality of manner was a brave and honest heart. I'm glad to see that your courage is so high." "Thank you, sir," said Happy sincerely. Half way up the mountain they found the dip they wished, sheltered by cedars and pines. Here they rested and ate, and from their covert saw many lights burning in the valley. But they knew they were the lights of the victorious foe, and they would not look that way often. The October winds were cold, and they had lost their blankets, but the dry leaves lay in heaps, and they raked them up for beds. The lads, worn to the bone, fell asleep, and, after a while, only the two colonels remained awake. "I do not feel sleepy at all, Hector," said Colonel Leonidas Talbot. "I could not possibly sleep, Leonidas," said Lieutenant Colonel St. Hilaire. "Then shall we?" "Why not?" Colonel Talbot produced from under his coat a small board, and Lieutenant Colonel St. Hilaire took from under his own coat a small box. They put the board upon a broad stone, arranged the chessmen, as they were at the latest interruption, and, as the moonlight came through the dwarfed pines and cedars, the two gray heads bent over the game. CHAPTER XII IN THE COVE General Sheridan permitted the Winchester men to rest a long time, or rather he ordered them to do so. No regiment had distinguished itself more at Cedar Creek or in the previous battles, and it was best for it to lie by a while, and recover its physical strength--strength of the spirit it had never lost. It also gave a needed chance to the sixteen slight wounds accumulated by Dick, Pennington and Warner to heal perfectly. "Unless something further happens," said Warner, regretfully, "I won't have a single honorable scar to take back with me and show in Vermont." "I'll have one slight, though honorable, scar, but I won't be able to show it," said Pennington, also with regret. "I trust that it's in front, Frank," said Dick. "It is, all right. Don't worry about that. But what about you, Dick?"