"You bet your life he can jump," said Horace Porter. "General Grant has ridden him twice and I saw him put Bob over a fence or two." [Illustration: BOB] Not long afterwards Tom did bet his life on Bob's jumping. He was named Bob before the United States took him. He had been captured the month before and had come across the lines with his name embroidered by some woman's hand on his saddle-blanket and with his late owner's blood upon his saddle. He was a tall, leggy animal who showed a trace of Arabian blood and who needed to be gentled a bit to get his best work out of him. His mouth was appreciative of sugar and his eyes were appreciative of kindness. Both dogs and horses talk with their eyes. "I like my new master," was what Bob's eyes said to Tom. It was through a chance suggestion of Colonel Porter that the boy saw most of what he did see of the final fight for freedom. Porter had presented Tom to Gen. Philip H. Sheridan, who was then at City Point, receiving Grant's final instructions for the twelve-day campaign that ended in the fall of Richmond and the surrender of Lee's brave army. Sheridan was a stocky, red-faced young Irishman, a graduate of West Point, and a born leader of men, especially of cavalrymen. He liked the clear-eyed lad who stood respectfully before him. He had done too much in his own youth to think Tom was useless because he was so young. Porter saw that the boy had made a good impression. He ventured a suggestion. "Why don't you take young Strong with you, General?" Sheridan turned sharply to Tom, asking: "Can you ride?" "Oh, yes, sir. I've ridden ever since I can remember." "Well, that's not so very long a time. But I'll take your word for it. Would you like to go with me?" "I'd like it better than anything else in the world, General." Tom had rejoiced in the idea of being with Grant, but he knew that the commander-in-chief must stay behind his lines and that his staff could catch but glimpses of the fighting, when they were sent forward with orders, whereas with Sheridan he might be in the very thick of the fighting itself. His ready answer and the joy that beamed in his eyes pleased the fighting Irishman. "Can I borrow him of General Grant?" Sheridan asked Porter. "I'll answer for that," Porter replied. "The General told me to put Strong to whatever work I could find for him to do." "Come ahead," said Sheridan. "You'll see some beautiful fighting!" Sheridan loved fighting, but he made no pretense of never being afraid. He thought a general should be close to the front, to keep his soldiers' spirits high. "Are you never afraid?" Charles A. Dana, then Assistant Secretary of War, once asked him. "If I was, I should not be ashamed of it. If I should follow my natural impulse, I should run away always at the beginning of the danger. The men who say they are never afraid in a battle do not tell the truth." * * * * *