As Dr. Denslow had surmised, his faults were mainly superficial, and underneath them was a firm gristle of manhood, which would speedily harden into bone. With the experience he had been having, days would mature this as rapidly as ordinary years. He was himself hardly aware of the transformation, but only felt, as his physical exhaustion disappeared, a new eagerness to participate in the great work of the war. He was gratified to know a little later that this was no transient feeling. In the course of the evening Jim Fortner came back in, with Kent Edwards and Abe Bolton. After they had all satisfied their hunger, Fortner informed Harry and Aunt Debby that the enemy had fallen back to London, from which point he was sending out wagons into the surrounding country, to gather up food, forage, arms, clothing, ammunition, etc., with the double object of depriving the Union men of them, and adding the same to the Rebel resources. A long train had also been sent out to the Goose Creek Salt Works--twenty-five miles northeast of London--to bring away a lot of salt stored there, of which the Rebels had even more need than of food.