The Virginians liked his bright face and manners.

Now they could not fail to see that some great movement was afoot, and more than once his new friends asked him its nature, but he replied truthfully that he did not know.

In the throb of great action Winchester disappeared from his thoughts.

Every faculty was bent upon the plans of Jackson, whatever they might be.
The afternoon drew to a close and then the short winter twilight passed swiftly.

The last night of the Old Year had come, and Harry was to enter at dawn upon one of the most vivid periods in the life of any boy that ever lived, a period paralleled perhaps only by that of the French lads who followed the young Bonaparte into the plains of Italy.