"Certainly," said Bill, and he handed over the paper that he held in his
hand.

Mayhall took the paper and looked it up and down helplessly--Flitter
Bill slyly watching him.

Mayhall handed it back. "If you please, Misto Richmond--I left my specs
at home." Without a smile, Bill began. It was an order from the
commandant at Cumberland Gap, sixty miles farther down Powell's Valley,
authorizing Mayhall Wells to form a company to guard the Gap and to
protect the property of Confederate citizens in the valley; and a
commission of captaincy in the said company for the said Mayhall Wells.
Mayhall's mouth widened to the full stretch of his lean jaws, and, when
Bill was through reading, he silently reached for the paper and looked
it up and down and over and over, muttering:

"Well--well--well!" And then he pointed silently to the name that was at
the bottom of the paper.

Bill spelled out the name:

"_Jefferson Davis_" and Mayhall's big fingers trembled as he pulled them
away, as though to avoid further desecration of that sacred name.

Then he rose, and a magical transformation began that can be likened--I
speak with reverence--to the turning of water into wine. Captain Mayhall
Wells raised his head, set his chin well in, and kept it there. He
straightened his shoulders, and kept them straight. He paced the floor
with a tread that was martial, and once he stopped before the door with