TWO SCOUTS. 167 



then there would transpire some particularly brill- 

 iant achievement that showed him invaluable for 

 our purposes. 



More than once, when our patrols reported the 

 immediate presence of the enemy, Pat would turn 

 up with the assurance that it was only so-and-so's 

 " band," who had come into the neighborhood on 

 a visiting or a marauding expedition, but with 

 no intention of putting themselves in our way; 

 and invariably we found his report to be correct. 

 Indeed, so frequently did this happen that we 

 became almost too confident in his assistance, 

 and when an excitable picket shot at a donkey 

 or a cow in the night-time, although the patrol 

 of the guard went through the usual routine of 

 investigation, we felt that there could be no se- 

 rious attack or Dixon would have notified us. 



How he obtained his information we could not 

 guess, and his own account of the matter was 

 never satisfactory; but I believe that no consid- 

 erable force of the enemy ever crossed the Mem- 

 phis and Charleston Railroad (the whole State's 

 width to the south of us) without our being 



