Page:Randall Parrish - The Red Mist.djvu/20

 6 "You are a younger man in appearance than I had expected to see, Sergeant," Jackson said slowly. "Yet I have learned within the last year to have confidence in young men. War is a swift developer of manhood. Your colonel speaks of you in the highest terms, and informs me that you are a native of Green Briar County."

"Our home was at Lewisburg, sir."

"Then you are doubtless intimately acquainted with that section?"

"Very well, indeed, General."

Jackson sat motionless and in silence for what seemed a long while, his grave eyes on my face, but his mind evidently elsewhere, one hand unconsciously crumpling a folded paper. Ashby moved his chair, causing it to crunch noisily on the floor, and the commander aroused at the unusual sound.

"By any possibility are you related to Judge Joel Wyatt?" he questioned slowly.

"He was my father, sir."

"I thought it was not improbable. There is a noticeable resemblance, and I recall he lived west of the mountains. I knew your father in Mexico. Is he still living?"

"He has been dead two years."

"I regret to hear it. Your mother, unless I am mistaken, was a Farquhar, of North Carolina?"