You let me be guide and be shore to send the sergeant, 'cause he's a full fo'-hoss team all by hisself.

An' Mr.Shepard ought to go along too.

All the others ought to be youngsters, an' spose you let Mr.Mason here lead 'em." Colonel Winchester did not resent at all these suggestions, which he knew to be excellent, and, while at first, for personal reasons of his own, he hesitated about sending Dick on so perilous an errand, he knew that he was better fitted for it than any other young officer in his command, and so he chose him.

The plan, too, appealed to him strongly.

He had taken lessons from the grand tactics of Lee and Jackson.