Rifles for Watie by Harold Keith Page B

glancing keenly into the bushes at a strange bird. But Jeff liked him. Noah was easy to get along with. And he knew more geography and natural history than all the rest of the company put together.
    â€œWhat’s the fartherest you ever walked on one trip?” Jeff asked.
    Noah gazed abstractedly at the parched ground passing beneath their feet. Then his white teeth flashed briefly in his tanned, leathery face.
    â€œI guess it was two years ago when I hiked from Topeka, Kansas, to Galveston, Texas. Why?”
    Jeff shrugged. “Oh, no particular reason. I just wondered.”
    They tramped fifty yards more in the broiling sunshine.
    â€œHow come you walked clear from Kansas to Galveston?”
    Noah turned his somber face seriously toward Jeff. “You probobly won’t believe me, youngster, but I wanted to see the magnolias in bloom.”
    Jeff caught his breath in surprise. Estimating fast, he reckoned it was roughly about nine hundred miles from Topeka to Galveston. If a fellow could stand all that walking, it would take about a month and a half to hoof it down there and another month and a half to hoof it back. Eighteen hundred miles just to see some flowers. Jeff stole another look at Noah. If anybody would do it, Noah Babbitt would be the man.
    Jeff said simply, “I believe you. Did you get to see them?”
    Noah nodded solemnly. “Shore did. An’ they was worth every foot of the trip.”
    At Grand River, Lyon and his three thousand Missourians and Iowans were waiting for them. Quickly two columns were formed side by side and the march resumed. Jeff gazed with interest at his new comrades. The only Missourians he had ever seen were the bushwhackers. He had supposed that everybody in Missouri was for the rebels. But these men were unmistakably Union. They were outfitted much more completely than the Kansas Volunteers.
    Their blue uniforms were newer, and they carried rubber blankets, bayonet scabbards and Springfield muskets. Their officers were equipped with Colt six-shooting revolvers. The Iowans sang while they marched and wanted to go swimming in every creek they crossed.
    As they marched along together, one of the Missourians, weighed down by his pack, staggered a little in the torrid heat and nearly dropped his gun. Looking closer, Jeff saw a boy even smaller than himself. He had big blue eyes and a mop of curly black hair.
    â€œHere, I’ll help you,” Jeff offered, reaching for the gun. But the lad refused the assistance, clinging tightly to the weapon.
    â€œThankee,” he mumbled, doggedly. “I can make it.”
    Jeff handed his own gun to Ford Ivey. Stooping, he picked up a handful of dead grass and turned to the boy.
    â€œGive me your cap a minute. I’ll show you a way to turn the heat.”
    Obediently the lad handed it over. Jeff put the dried grass in the crown, poured water from his canteen over it, and handed it back to its owner. It was a trick he had learned with his own straw hat while plowing. The boy clapped the cap gratefully onto his black curls.
    â€œThankee,” he said, shyly. “That’s real cool.”
    Trudging along, Jeff asked the Missouri boy, “What’s your name?”
    â€œJimmy Lear. What’s yours?”
    Jeff told him, and they fell to talking. Jimmy was from St. Louis and belonged to Lyon’s army. He had walked all the way except for a short boat ride near Boonville. He told Jeff he had belonged to a military club in St. Louis, organized by Frank P. Blair, a leader there of the unconditional Union men. They had drilled for weeks without guns. When war was declared, they had promptly joined the Union army. Riding in steamboats, they had already been in a couple of skirmishes at Jefferson City and Boonville, breaking up small concentrations of state troops that were being pointed for service with the rebels. Jeff listened enviously. Nothing so exciting had yet happened to him.
    They were deep in