第46章 CHAPTER IX THE RIVER JOURNEY(2)

Feelin' better already, boy? Don't 'pear as if you was tearin' out a lung or two every time you drawed breath?""I'm almost well," said Harry gratefully, "and, Mr. Jarvis, I'd like to leave my wet clothes here to dry while I'm gone. I'll be back in the morning with my father.""All right," said Samuel Jarvis, "but I wish you'd come bright an' early. Me an' this lunkhead, Ike, my nephew, ain't used to great cities, an' me bein' of an inquirin' turn o' mind we'll be anxious to see all that's to be seed in Frankfort.""Don't you fear," replied Harry, full of gratitude, "I'll be back soon in the morning.""But don't furgit one thing," continued Jarvis. "I hear there's a mighty howdy-do here about the state goin' out o' the Union or stayin' in it. The mountains are jest hummin' with talk about the question, but don't make me take any part in it. Me an' this lunkhead, Ike, my nephew, are here jest to sell logs, not to decide the fate o' states.""I'll remember that, too," said Harry, as he shook hands warmly with both of them, left the raft, climbed the bank and entered Frankfort.

The little town had few lights in those days and the boy moved along in the dusk, until he came near the Capitol. There he saw the flame of lamps shining from several windows, and he knew that men were still at work, striving to draw a state into the arms of the North or the South.

He paused a few minutes at the corner of the lawn and drew many long, deep breaths. The soreness was almost gone from his chest. The oil with which Samuel Jarvis had kneaded his bruises was certainly wonderful, and he hoped that "Aunt Suse," who got it from the Indians, would fill out her second hundred years.

He reached the hotel without meeting any one whom he knew, and went up the stairway to his room, where he found his father writing at a small desk. Colonel Kenton glanced at him, and noticed at once his change of costume.

"What does that clothing mean, Harry?" he asked. "It's jeans, and it doesn't fit.""I know it's jeans, and I know it doesn't fit, but I was mighty glad to get it, as everything else I had on was soaked with water."Colonel Kenton raised his eyebrows.

"I was hunting the bottom of the Kentucky River," continued Harry.

"Fall in?"

"No, thrown in."

Colonel Kenton raised his eyebrows higher than ever.

Harry sat down and told him the whole story, Colonel Kenton listening intently and rarely interrupting.

"It was great good fortune that the men on the raft came just at the right time," he said, when Harry had finished. "There are bad mountaineers and good mountaineers--Jarvis and his nephew represent one type and Skelly the other. Skelly hates us because we drove back his band when they attacked our house. In peaceful times we could have him hunted out and punished, but we cannot follow him into his mountains now. We shall be compelled to let this pass for the present, but as your life would not be safe here you must leave Frankfort, Harry.""I can't go back to Pendleton," said the boy, "and stay there, doing nothing.""I had no such purpose. I know that you are bound to be in active life, and I was already meditating a longer journey for you. Listen clearly to me, Harry. The fight here is about over, and we are going to fail.

It is by the narrowest of margins, but still we will fail. We who are for the South know it with certainty. Kentucky will refuse to go out of the Union, and it is a great blow to us. I shall have to go back to Pendleton for a week or two and then I will take a command. But since you are bent upon service in the field, I want you to go to the East."Harry's face flushed with pleasure. It was his dearest wish. Colonel Kenton, looking at him out of the corner of his eyes, smiled.

"I fancied that you would be quite willing to go," he said. "I had a letter this morning from a man who likes you well, Colonel Leonidas Talbot. He is at Richmond and he says that President Davis, his cabinet, and all the equipment of a capital will arrive there about the last of the month. The enemy is massing before Washington and also toward the West in the Maryland and Virginia mountains. A great battle is sure to be fought in the summer and he wants you on his staff. General Beauregard, whom you knew at Charleston, is to be in supreme command.

Can you leave here in a day or two for Richmond?"Harry's eyes were sparkling, and the flush was still in his face.

"I could go in an hour," he replied.

"Such an abrupt departure as that is not needed. Moreover the choice of a route is of great importance and requires thought. If you were to take one of the steamers up the Ohio, say to Wheeling, in West Virginia, you would almost surely fall into the hands of the Northern troops.

The North also controls about all the railway connections there are between Kentucky and Virginia.""Then I must ride across the mountains."

"These new friends of yours who saved you from the river, are they going to stay long in Frankfort?""Not more than a day or two, I think. I gathered from what Jarvis said that they were not willing to remain long where trouble was thick.""How are their sympathies placed in this great division of our people?"Harry laughed.

"I inferred," he replied, "from what Jarvis said that they intend to keep the peace. He intimated to me that the silence of the mountains was more welcome to him than the cause of either North or South."Colonel Kenton smiled again.

"Perhaps he is wiser than the rest of us," he said, "but in any event, I think he is our man. He will sell his logs and pull back up the Kentucky in a small boat. I gather from what you say that he came down the most southerly fork of the Kentucky, which, in a general way, is the route you wish to take. You can go with him and his nephew until they reach their home in the mountains. Then you must take a horse, strike south into the old Wilderness Road, cross the ranges into Virginia and reach Richmond. Are you willing?"He spoke as father to son, and also as man to man.