80 WHIP AND SPUR. 



Missouri had never heard before, broke the line 

 by twos from the right, and we were off for a 

 promising trip. Marmaduke we knew of old, and 

 personal cowardice would have deterred no one 

 from joining our party, for he could be reached 

 from our stronger army only by a complete sur- 

 prise ; and in a country where every woman and 

 child (white, I mean) was his friend and our ene- 

 my, a surprise, over ninety miles of bad roads, 

 seemed out of the question. Indeed, before we 

 had made a half of the distance, one of his flying 

 scouts told a negro woman by the roadside, as 

 he checked his run to water his horse, " There 's 

 a hell's-mint o' Yanks a comin' over the moun- 

 tain, and I must git to Marmyjuke " ; and to 

 Marmaduke he " got," half a day ahead of us, 

 only to be laughed at for a coward who had been 

 frightened by a foraging-party. 



The second night brought us to Evening Shade, 

 a little village where one Captain Smith was rais- 

 ing a company. They had all gone, hours ahead 

 of us, but had left their supplies and their fires 

 behind them, and these, with the aid of a grist- 



