He merely nodded approval when Major Hertford told of their march.
"I will assign your troops to a brigade," he said, "and I don't think you'll have long to wait.

We're expecting a battle in a few days with Crittenden and Zollicoffer." "Not much to say," remarked Dick to Warner, as they went away.
"That's true," said Warner, thoughtfully, "but didn't you get an impression of strength from his very silence?
I should say that in his make-up he is five per cent talk, twenty-five per cent patience and seventy per cent action; total, one hundred per cent." The region in which they lay was west of the higher mountains, which they had now crossed, but it was very rough and hilly.

Not far from them was a little town called Somerset, which Dick had visited once, and near by, too, was the deep and swift Cumberland River, with much floating ice at its edges.

When the two lads lay by a campfire that night Sergeant Whitley came to them with the news of the situation, which he had picked up in his usual deft and quiet way.
"The Southern army is on the banks of the Cumberland," he said.

"It has not been able to get its provisions by land through Cumberland Gap.
Instead they have been brought by boats on the river.