"
Dick was not averse to silence, as he, too, was half asleep; that is,
he was in a dreamy stage, and he was at peace with the world and his
fellow men. From under drooping eyelids he was vaguely watching the low
shores of the Mississippi, and the great mass of yellow waters moving
onward from the far vague forests of the North in their journey of four
thousand miles to the gulf.
Like all boys of the great valley, Dick always felt the romance and spell
of the Mississippi. It was to him and them one of the greatest facts
in the natural world, the grave of De Soto, the stream on which their
fathers and forefathers had explored and traded and fought since their
beginnings. Now it was fulfilling its titanic role again, and the Union
fleets upon its bosom were splitting the Confederacy asunder.
He, too, fell asleep before long. Warner glanced at his comrades who
slept so well on a hard bench, and his look was rather envious. He
returned his beloved algebra to his pocket, leaned back on the bench also,
and, although he had not believed it possible, slept also inside of five
minutes.
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