Page:Harvey O'Higgins--Silent Sam and other stories.djvu/335

Rh this Morgan—" He straightened back in his chair. "When they took me in the room to him—"

"But, Father," she interrupted, "you have n't told us how you came to be there."

He put the things away from him to clear the table-cloth before him. "Here," he said curtly. "Here 's Kentucky. Here 's the river. Here 's Indiana. Here 's Ohio. Morgan got across into Indiana on the Alice Dean and raided up into Ohio and got around behind Cincinnati and cut off the town. Our troops were after him, or he 'd have burned Cincinnati if he 'd had time. He was trying to get back to the river, and we believed he 'd cross the C. H. & D. somewhere between Cincinnati and Dayton. Shield's Battery was ordered up the line from Cincinnati, at the last minute, to help intercept him, and when the train was made up—about twenty cars, five hundred men, guns on flat cars—the directors called me in and asked me if I was afraid to take it out."

"And you were n't, of course," the lieutenant said politely.

He looked up with a flicker of amusement. "How old are you?"

The lieutenant answered calmly: "Twenty-six." He nodded—or rather, he swayed his head. He had no visible neck; the weight of his enormous skull seemed to have sunken his jaw down on his shoulders. "I 'm Scotch," he said. "And, at that time, I was red-headed—if you know what that means."

The lieutenant considered him. He was gray now,