Anyway, if they should come into the path at the other end, we'd hear them long before they heard us." "You're right, Billy, and as we ride on we'll all three listen with six good ears." "Yes, sir," said Billy.
Harry, although only a boy himself, was so much older than Billy, who addressed him as "sir," that he felt himself quite a veteran.
"Billy," he said, "how did it happen that you were riding down this way, so far from home, to-day ?" "'Cause we heard there was Yanks in the Gap.

Ma won't let me go an' fight with Stonewall Jackson.

She says I ain't old enough an' big enough, but she told me herself to get on the horse an' ride down this way, an' see if what we heard was true.

I saw 'em in little bunches, an' then that gang come to our house to-night, less 'n ten minutes after I come back.

We'll be at a creek, sir, in less than five minutes.