returned. The sky was as blue and soft as velvet. The great stars
glittered and danced, and the wind among the rustling leaves was like the
soft singing of a violin. At one point they crossed a little brook which
ran so swiftly down among the trees that it was a foam of water. They
dismounted, drank hastily, and then let the horses take their fill.

"I like these hills and forests and their clear waters," said Dick,
"and judging by the appearance it must be a fine country to which we're
coming."

"It is. It's something like your Kentucky Blue Grass, although it's
smaller and it's hemmed in by sharper and bolder mountains. But I should
say that the Shenandoah Valley is close to a hundred and twenty miles
long, and from twenty-five to forty miles wide, not including its spur,
the Luray Valley, west of the Massanuttons."

"As large as one of the German Principalities."

"And as fine as any of them."

"It's where Stonewall Jackson made that first and famous campaign of his."

"And it's lucky for us that we don't have to face him there now. Early
is a good general, they say, but he's no Stonewall Jackson."

"And we're to be led by Sheridan. I think he saved us at Perryville in
Kentucky, but they say he's become a great cavalry commander. Do you
know him, Mr. Shepard?"

"Well. A young man, and a little man. Why, you'd overtop him more than