The Crisis — Complete

CHAPTER XXIII. OF CLARENCE

Captain Clarence Colfax, late of the State Dragoons, awoke on Sunday morning the chief of the many topics of the conversation of a big city. His conduct drew forth enthusiastic praise from the gentlemen and ladies who had thronged Beauregard and Davis avenues, and honest admiration from the party which had broken up the camp. The boy had behaved well. There were many doting parents, like Mr. Catherwood, whose boys had accepted the parole, whose praise was a trifle lukewarm, to be sure. But popular opinion, when once aroused, will draw a grunt from the most grudging.

We are not permitted, alas, to go behind these stern walls and discover how Captain Colfax passed that eventful Sunday of the Exodus. We know that, in his loneliness, he hoped for a visit from his cousin, and took to pacing his room in the afternoon, when a smarting sense of injustice crept upon him. Clarence was young. And how was he to guess, as he looked out in astonishment upon the frightened flock of white boats swimming southward, that his mother and his sweetheart were there?

On Monday, while the Colonel and many prominent citizens were busying themselves about procuring the legal writ which was at once to release Mr. Colfax, and so cleanse the whole body of Camp Jackson's defenders from any, veiled intentions toward the Government, many well known carriages drew up before the Carvel House in Locust Street to congratulate the widow and the Colonel upon the possession of such a son and nephew. There were some who slyly congratulated Virginia, whose martyrdom it was to sit up with people all the day long. For Mrs. Colfax kept her room, and admitted only a few of her bosom friends to cry with her. When the last of the callers was gone, Virginia was admitted to her aunt's presence.

“Aunt Lillian, to-morrow morning Pa and I are going to the Arsenal with a basket for Max. Pa seems to think there is a chance that he may come back with us. You will go, of course.”

The lady smiled wearily at the proposal, and raised her hands in protest, the lace on the sleeves of her dressing gown falling away from her white arms.

“Go, my dear?” she exclaimed, “when I can't walk to my bureau after that terrible Sunday. You are crazy, Jinny. No,” she added, with conviction, “I never again expect to see him alive. Comyn says they may release him, does he? Is he turning Yankee, too?”

The girl went away, not in anger or impatience, but in sadness. Brought up to reverence her elders, she had ignored the shallowness of her aunt's character in happier days. But now Mrs. Colfax's conduct carried a prophecy with it. Virginia sat down on the landing to ponder on the years to come,—on the pain they were likely to bring with them from this source—Clarence gone to the war; her father gone (for she felt that he would go in the end), Virginia foresaw the lonely days of trial in company with this vain woman whom accident made her cousin's mother. Ay, and more, fate had made her the mother of the man she was to marry. The girl could scarcely bear the thought—through the hurry and swing of the events of two days she had kept it from her mind.

But now Clarence was to be released. To-morrow he would be coming home to her joyfully for his reward, and she did not love him. She was bound to face that again and again. She had cheated herself again and again with other feelings. She had set up intense love of country in the shrine where it did not belong, and it had answered—for a while. She saw Clarence in a hero's light—until a fatal intimate knowledge made her shudder and draw back. And yet her resolution should not be water. She would carry it through.

Captain Lige's cheery voice roused her from below—and her father's laugh. And as she went down to them she thanked God that this friend had been spared to him. Never had the Captain's river yarns been better told than at the table that evening. Virginia did not see him glance at the Colonel when at last he had brought a smile to her face.

“I'm going to leave Jinny with you, Lige,” said Mr. Carvel, presently. “Worington has some notion that the Marshal may go to the Arsenal to-night with the writ. I mustn't neglect the boy.”

Virginia stood in front of him. “Won't you let me go?” she pleaded

The Colonel was taken aback. He stood looking down at her, stroking his goatee, and marvelling at the ways of woman.

“The horses have been out all day, Jinny,” he said, “I am going in the cars.”

“I can go in the cars, too.”

The Colonel looked at Captain Lige.

“There is only a chance that we shall see Clarence,” he went on, uneasily.

“It is better than sitting still,” cried Virginia, as she ran away to get the bonnet with the red strings.

“Lige,—” said the Colonel, as the two stood awaiting her in the hall, “I can't make her out. Can you?”

The Captain did not answer.

It was a long journey, in a bumping car with had springs that rattled unceasingly, past the string of provost guards. The Colonel sat in the corner, with his head bent down over his stick At length, cramped and weary, they got out, and made their way along the Arsenal wall, past the sentries to the entrance. The sergeant brought his rifle to a “port”.

“Commandant's orders, sir. No one admitted,” he said.

“Is Captain Colfax here?” asked Mr. Carver

“Captain Colfax was taken to Illinois in a skiff, quarter of an hour since.”

Captain Lige gave vent to a long, low whistle.

“A skiff!” he exclaimed, “and the river this high! A skiff!”

Virginia clasped his arm in terror. “Is there danger?”

Before he could answer came the noise of steps from the direction of the river, and a number of people hurried up excitedly. Colonel Carvel recognized Mr. Worington, the lawyer, and caught him by the sleeve.

“Anything happened?” he demanded.

Worington glanced at the sentry, and pulled the Colonel past the entrance and into the street. Virginia and Captain Lige followed.

“They have started across with him in a light skiff——four men and a captain. The young fool! We had him rescued.”

“Rescued!”

“Yes. There were but five in the guard. And a lot of us, who suspected what they were up to, were standing around. When we saw 'em come down, we made a rush and had the guard overpowered But Colfax called out to stand back.”

“Well, sir.”

“Cuss me if I understand him,” said Mr. Worington. “He told us to disperse, and that he proposed to remain a prisoner and go where they sent him.”

There was a silence. Then—“Move on please, gentlemen,” said the sentry, and they started to walk toward the car line, the lawyer and the Colonel together. Virginia put her hand through the Captain's arm. In the darkness he laid his big one over it.

“Don't you be frightened, Jinny, at what I said, I reckon they'll fetch up in Illinois all right, if I know Lyon. There, there,” said Captain Lige, soothingly. Virginia was crying softly. She had endured more in the past few days than often falls to the lot of one-and-twenty.

“There, there, Jinny.” He felt like crying himself. He thought of the many, many times he had taken her on his knee and kissed her tears. He might do that no more, now. There was the young Captain, a prisoner on the great black river, who had a better right, Elijah Brent wondered, as they waited in the silent street for the lonely car, if Clarence loved her as well as he.

It was vary late when they reached home, and Virginia went silently up to her room. Colonel Carvel stared grimly after her, then glanced at his friend as he turned down the lights. The eyes of the two met, as of old, in true understanding.

The sun was still slanting over the tops of the houses the next morning when Virginia, a ghostly figure, crept down the stairs and withdrew the lock and bolt on the front door. The street was still, save for the twittering of birds and the distant rumble of a cart in its early rounds. The chill air of the morning made her shiver as she scanned the entry for the newspaper. Dismayed, she turned to the clock in the hall. Its hands were at quarter past five.

She sat long behind the curtains in her father's little library, the thoughts whirling in her brain as she watched the growing life of another day. What would it bring forth? Once she stole softly back to the entry, self-indulgent and ashamed, to rehearse again the bitter and the sweet of that scene of the Sunday before. She summoned up the image of the young man who had stood on these steps in front of the frightened servants. She seemed to feel again the calm power and earnestness of his face, to hear again the clear-cut tones of his voice as he advised her. Then she drew back, frightened, into the sombre library, conscience-stricken that she should have yielded to this temptation then, when Clarence—She dared not follow the thought, but she saw the light skiff at the mercy of the angry river and the dark night.

This had haunted her. If he were spared, she prayed for strength to consecrate herself to him A book lay on the table, and Virginia took refuge in it. And her eyes glancing over the pages, rested on this verse:—

The paper brought no news, nor mentioned the ruse to which Captain Lyon had resorted to elude the writ by transporting his prisoner to Illinois. Newspapers were not as alert then as now. Colonel Carvel was off early to the Arsenal in search of tidings. He would not hear of Virginia's going with him. Captain Lige, with a surer instinct, went to the river. What a morning of suspense! Twice Virginia was summoned to her aunt, and twice she made excuse. It was the Captain who returned first, and she met him at the door.

“Oh, what have you heard?” she cried.

“He is alive,” said the Captain, tremulously, “alive and well, and escaped South.”

She took a step toward him, and swayed. The Captain caught her. For a brief instant he held her in his arms and then he led her to the great armchair that was the Colonel's.

“Lige,” she said, “—are you sure that this is not—a kindness?”

“No, Jinny,” he answered quickly, “but things were mighty close. I was afraid last night. The river was roarin'. They struck out straight across, but they drifted and drifted like log-wood. And then she began to fill, and all five of 'em to bail. Then—-then she went down. The five soldiers came up on that bit of an island below the Arsenal. They hunted all night, but they didn't find Clarence. And they got taken off to the Arsenal this morning.”

“And how do you know?” she faltered.

“I knew that much this morning,” he continued, “and so did your pa. But the Andrew Jackson is just in from Memphis, and the Captain tells me that he spoke the Memphis packet off Cape Girardeau, and that Clarence was aboard. She picked him up by a miracle, after he had just missed a round trip through her wheel-house.”

BOOK III.

Volume 6.

CHAPTER I. INTRODUCING A CAPITALIST

A cordon of blue regiments surrounded the city at first from Carondelet to North St. Louis, like an open fan. The crowds liked best to go to Compton Heights, where the tents of the German citizen-soldiers were spread out like so many slices of white cake on the green beside the city's reservoir. Thence the eye stretched across the town, catching the dome of the Court House and the spire of St. John's. Away to the west, on the line of the Pacific railroad that led halfway across the state, was another camp. Then another, and another, on the circle of the fan, until the river was reached to the northward, far above the bend. Within was a peace that passed understanding,—the peace of martial law.

Without the city, in the great state beyond, an irate governor had gathered his forces from the east and from the west. Letters came and went between Jefferson City and Jefferson Davis, their purport being that the Governor was to work out his own salvation, for a while at least. Young men of St. Louis, struck in a night by the fever of militarism, arose and went to Glencoe. Prying sergeants and commissioned officers, mostly of hated German extraction, thundered at the door of Colonel Carvel's house, and other houses, there—for Glencoe was a border town. They searched the place more than once from garret to cellar, muttered guttural oaths, and smelled of beer and sauerkraut, The haughty appearance of Miss Carvel did not awe them—they were blind to all manly sensations. The Colonel's house, alas, was one of many in Glencoe written down in red ink in a book at headquarters as a place toward which the feet of the young men strayed. Good evidence was handed in time and time again that the young men had come and gone, and red-faced commanding officers cursed indignant subalterns, and implied that Beauty had had a hand in it. Councils of war were held over the advisability of seizing Mr. Carvel's house at Glencoe, but proof was lacking until one rainy night in June a captain and ten men spurred up the drive and swung into a big circle around the house. The Captain took off his cavalry gauntlet and knocked at the door, more gently than usual. Miss Virginia was home so Jackson said. The Captain was given an audience more formal than one with the queen of Prussia could have been, Miss Carvel was infinitely more haughty than her Majesty. Was not the Captain hired to do a degrading service? Indeed, he thought so as he followed her about the house and he felt like the lowest of criminals as he opened a closet door or looked under a bed. He was a beast of the field, of the mire. How Virginia shrank from him if he had occasion to pass her! Her gown would have been defiled by his touch. And yet the Captain did not smell of beer, nor of sauerkraut; nor did he swear in any language. He did his duty apologetically, but he did it. He pulled a man (aged seventeen) out from under a great hoop skirt in a little closet, and the man had a pistol that refused its duty when snapped in the Captain's face. This was little Spencer Catherwood, just home from a military academy.

Spencer was taken through the rain by the chagrined Captain to the headquarters, where he caused a little embarrassment. No damning evidence was discovered on his person, for the pistol had long since ceased to be a firearm. And so after a stiff lecture from the Colonel he was finally given back into the custody of his father. Despite the pickets, the young men filtered through daily,—or rather nightly. Presently some of them began to come back, gaunt and worn and tattered, among the grim cargoes that were landed by the thousands and tens of thousands on the levee. And they took them (oh, the pity of it!) they took them to Mr. Lynch's slave pen, turned into a Union prison of detention, where their fathers and grandfathers had been wont to send their disorderly and insubordinate niggers. They were packed away, as the miserable slaves had been, to taste something of the bitterness of the negro's lot. So came Bert Russell to welter in a low room whose walls gave out the stench of years. How you cooked for them, and schemed for them, and cried for them, you devoted women of the South! You spent the long hot summer in town, and every day you went with your baskets to Gratiot Street, where the infected old house stands, until—until one morning a lady walked out past the guard, and down the street. She was civilly detained at the corner, because she wore army boots. After that permits were issued. If you were a young lady of the proper principles in those days, you climbed a steep pair of stairs in the heat, and stood in line until it became your turn to be catechised by an indifferent young officer in blue who sat behind a table and smoked a horrid cigar. He had little time to be courteous. He was not to be dazzled by a bright gown or a pretty face; he was indifferent to a smile which would have won a savage. His duty was to look down into your heart, and extract therefrom the nefarious scheme you had made to set free the man you loved ere he could be sent north to Alton or Columbus. My dear, you wish to rescue him, to disguise him, send him south by way of Colonel Carvel's house at Glencoe. Then he will be killed. At least, he will have died for the South.

First politics, and then war, and then more politics, in this our country. Your masterful politician obtains a regiment, and goes to war, sword in hand. He fights well, but he is still the politician. It was not a case merely of fighting for the Union, but first of getting permission to fight. Camp Jackson taken, and the prisoners exchanged south, Captain Lyon; who moved like a whirlwind, who loved the Union beyond his own life, was thrust down again. A mutual agreement was entered into between the Governor and the old Indian fighter in command of the Western Department, to respect each other. A trick for the Rebels. How Lyon chafed, and paced the Arsenal walks while he might have saved the state. Then two gentlemen went to Washington, and the next thing that happened was Brigadier General Lyon, Commander of the Department of the West.

Would General Lyon confer with the Governor of Missouri? Yes, the General would give the Governor a safe-conduct into St. Louis, but his Excellency must come to the General. His Excellency came, and the General deigned to go with the Union leader to the Planters House. Conference, five hours; result, a safe-conduct for the Governor back. And this is how General Lyon ended the talk. His words, generously preserved by a Confederate colonel who accompanied his Excellency, deserve to be writ in gold on the National Annals.

“Rather than concede to the state of Missouri the right to demand that my Government shall not enlist troops within her limits, or bring troops into the state whenever it pleases; or move its troops at its own will into, out of, or through, the state; rather than concede to the state of Missouri for one single instant the right to dictate to my Government in any matter, however unimportant, I would” (rising and pointing in turn to every one in the room) “see you, and you, and you, and you, and every man, woman, and child in this state, dead and buried.” Then, turning to the Governor, he continued, “This means war. In an hour one of my officers will call for you and conduct you out of my lines.”

And thus, without another word, without an inclination of the head, he turned upon his heel and strode out of the room, rattling his spurs and clanking his sabre.

It did mean war. In less than two months that indomitable leader was lying dead beside Wilson's Creek, among the oaks on Bloody Hill. What he would have been to this Union, had God spared him, we shall never know. He saved Missouri, and won respect and love from the brave men who fought against him.

Those first fierce battles in the state! What prayers rose to heaven, and curses sank to hell, when the news of them came to the city by the river! Flags were made by loving fingers, and shirts and bandages. Trembling young ladies of Union sympathies presented colors to regiments on the Arsenal Green, or at Jefferson Barracks, or at Camp Benton to the northwest near the Fair Grounds. And then the regiments marched through the streets with bands playing that march to which the words of the Battle Hymn were set, and those bright ensigns snapping at the front; bright now, and new, and crimson. But soon to be stained a darker red, and rent into tatters, and finally brought back and talked over and cried over, and tenderly laid above an inscription in a glass case, to be revered by generations of Americans to confer What can stir the soul more than the sight of those old flags, standing in ranks like the veterans they are, whose duty has been nobly done? The blood of the color-sergeant is there, black now with age. But where are the tears of the sad women who stitched the red and the white and the blue together?

The regiments marched through the streets and aboard the boats, and pushed off before a levee of waving handkerchiefs and nags. Then heart-breaking suspense. Later—much later, black headlines, and grim lists three columns long,—three columns of a blanket sheet! “The City of Alton has arrived with the following Union dead and wounded, and the following Confederate wounded (prisoners).” Why does the type run together?

In a never-ceasing procession they steamed up the river; those calm boats which had been wont to carry the white cargoes of Commerce now bearing the red cargoes of war. And they bore away to new battlefields thousands of fresh-faced boys from Wisconsin and Michigan and Minnesota, gathered at Camp Benton. Some came back with their color gone and their red cheeks sallow and bearded and sunken. Others came not back at all.

Stephen Brice, with a pain over his heart and a lump in his throat, walked on the pavement beside his old company, but his look avoided their faces. He wrung Richter's hand on the landing-stage. Richter was now a captain. The good German's eyes were filled as he said good-by.

“You will come, too, my friend, when the country needs you,” he said. “Now” (and he shrugged his shoulders), “now have we many with no cares to go. I have not even a father—” And he turned to Judge Whipple, who was standing by, holding out a bony hand.

“God bless you, Carl,” said the Judge And Carl could scarce believe his ears. He got aboard the boat, her decks already blue with troops, and as she backed out with her whistle screaming, the last objects he saw were the gaunt old man and the broad-shouldered young man side by side on the edge of the landing.

Stephen's chest heaved, and as he walked back to the office with the Judge, he could not trust himself to speak. Back to the silent office where the shelves mocked them. The Judge closed the ground-glass door behind him, and Stephen sat until five o'clock over a book. No, it was not Whittlesey, but Hardee's “Tactics.” He shut it with a slam, and went to Verandah Hall to drill recruits on a dusty floor,—narrow-chested citizens in suspenders, who knew not the first motion in right about face. For Stephen was an adjutant in the Home Guards—what was left of them.

One we know of regarded the going of the troops and the coming of the wounded with an equanimity truly philosophical. When the regiments passed Carvel & Company on their way riverward to embark, Mr. Hopper did not often take the trouble to rise from his chair, nor was he ever known to go to the door to bid them Godspeed. This was all very well, because they were Union regiments. But Mr. Hopper did not contribute a horse, nor even a saddle-blanket, to the young men who went away secretly in the night, without fathers or mothers or sisters to wave at them. Mr. Hopper had better use for his money.

One scorching afternoon in July Colonel Carvel came into the office, too hurried to remark the pain in honest Ephum's face as he watched his master. The sure signs of a harassed man were on the Colonel. Since May he had neglected his business affairs for others which he deemed public, and which were so mysterious that even Mr. Hopper could not get wind of them. These matters had taken the Colonel out of town. But now the necessity of a pass made that awkward, and he went no farther than Glencoe, where he spent an occasional Sunday. Today Mr. Hopper rose from his chair when Mr. Carvel entered,—a most unprecedented action. The Colonel cleared his throat. Sitting down at his desk, he drummed upon it uneasily.

“Mr. Hopper!” he said at length.

Eliphalet crossed the room quickly, and something that was very near a smile was on his face. He sat down close to Mr. Carvel's chair with a semi-confidential air,—one wholly new, had the Colonel given it a thought. He did not, but began to finger some printed slips of paper which had indorsements on their backs. His fine lips were tightly closed, as if in pain.

“Mr. Hopper,” he said, “these Eastern notes are due this week, are they not?”

“Yes, sir.”

The Colonel glanced up swiftly.

“There is no use mincing matters, Hopper. You know as well as I that there is no money to pay them,” said he, with a certain pompous attempt at severity which characterized his kind nature. “You have served me well. You have brought this business up to a modern footing, and made it as prosperous as any in the town. I am sorry, sir, that those contemptible Yankees should have forced us to the use of arms, and cut short many promising business careers such as yours, sir. But we have to face the music. We have to suffer for our principles.

“These notes cannot be met, Mr. Hopper.” And the good gentleman looked out of the window. He was thinking of a day, before the Mexican War, when his young wife had sat in the very chair filled by Mr. Hopper now. “These notes cannot be met,” he repeated, and his voice was near to breaking.

The flies droning in the hot office made the only sound. Outside the partition, among the bales, was silence.

“Colonel,” said Mr. Hopper, with a remarkable ease, “I cal'late these notes can be met.”

The Colonel jumped as if he had heard a shot, and one of the notes fell to the floor. Eliphalet picked it up tenderly, and held it.

“What do you mean, sir?” Mr. Carvel cried. “There isn't a bank in town that will lend me money. I—I haven't a friend—a friend I may ask who can spare it, sir.”

Mr. Hopper lifted up his hand. It was a fat hand. Suavity was come upon it like a new glove and changed the man. He was no longer cringing. Now he had poise, such poise as we in these days are accustomed to see in leather and mahogany offices. The Colonel glared at him uncomfortably.

“I will take up those notes myself, sir.”

“You!” cried the Colonel, incredulously, “You?”

We must do Eliphalet justice. There was not a deal of hypocrisy in his nature, and now he did not attempt the part of Samaritan. He did not beam upon the Colonel and remind him of the day on which, homeless and friendless, he had been frightened into his store by a drove of mules. No. But his day,—the day toward which he had striven unknown and unnoticed for so many years—the day when he would laugh at the pride of those who had ignored and insulted him, was dawning at last. When we are thoughtless of our words, we do not reckon with that spark in little bosoms that may burst into flame and burn us. Not that Colonel Carvel had ever been aught but courteous and kind to all. His station in life had been his offence to Eliphalet, who strove now to hide an exultation that made him tremble.

“What do you mean, sir?” demanded the Colonel, again.

“I cal'late that I can gather together enough to meet the notes, Colonel. Just a little friendly transaction.” Here followed an interval of sheer astonishment to Mr. Carvel.

“You have this money?” he said at length. Mr. Hopper nodded.

“And you will take my note for the amount?”

“Yes, sir.”

The Colonel pulled his goatee, and sat back in his chair, trying to face the new light in which he saw his manager. He knew well enough that the man was not doing this out of charity, or even gratitude. He reviewed his whole career, from that first morning when he had carried bales to the shipping room, to his replacement of Mr. Hood, and there was nothing with which to accuse him. He remembered the warnings of Captain Lige and Virginia. He could not in honor ask a cent from the Captain now. He would not ask his sister-in-law, Mrs. Colfax, to let him touch the money he had so ably invested for her; that little which Virginia's mother had left the girl was sacred.

Night after night Mr. Carvel had lain awake with the agony of those Eastern debts. Not to pay was to tarnish the name of a Southern gentleman. He could not sell the business. His house would bring nothing in these times. He rose and began to pace the floor, tugging at his chin. Twice he paused to stare at Mr. Hopper, who sat calmly on, and the third time stopped abruptly before him.

“See here,” he cried. “Where the devil did you get this money, sir?”

Mr. Hopper did not rise.

“I haven't been extravagant, Colonel, since I've worked for you,” he said. “It don't cost me much to live. I've been fortunate in investments.”

The furrows in the Colonel's brow deepened.

“You offer to lend me five times more than I have ever paid you, Mr. Hopper. Tell me how you have made this money before I accept it.”

Eliphalet had never been able to meet that eye since he had known it. He did not meet it now. But he went to his desk, and drew a long sheet of paper from a pigeonhole.

“These be some of my investments,” he answered, with just a tinge of surliness. “I cal'late they'll stand inspection. I ain't forcing you to take the money, sir,” he flared up, all at once. “I'd like to save the business.”

Mr. Carvel was disarmed. He went unsteadily to his desk, and none save God knew the shock that his pride received that day. To rescue a name which had stood untarnished since he had brought it into the world, he drew forth some blank notes, and filled them out. But before he signed them he spoke:

“You are a business man, Mr. Hopper,” said he, “And as a business man you must know that these notes will not legally hold. It is martial law. The courts are abolished, and all transactions here in St. Louis are invalid.”

Eliphalet was about to speak.

“One moment, sir,” cried the Colonel, standing up and towering to his full height. “Law or no law, you shall have the money and interest, or your security, which is this business. I need not tell you, sir, that my word is sacred, and binding forever upon me and mine.”

“I'm not afraid, Colonel,” answered Mr. Hopper, with a feeble attempt at geniality. He was, in truth, awed at last.

“You need not be, sir!” said the Colonel, with equal force. “If you were—this instant you should leave this place.” He sat down, and continued more calmly: “It will not be long before a Southern Army marches into St. Louis, and the Yankee Government submits.” He leaned forward. “Do you reckon we can hold the business together until then, Mr. Hopper?”

God forbid that we should smile at the Colonel's simple faith. And if Eliphalet Hopper had done so, his history would have ended here.

“Leave that to me, Colonel,” he said soberly.

Then came the reaction. The good Colonel sighed as he signed, away that business which had been an honor to the city where it was founded, I thank heaven that we are not concerned with the details of their talk that day. Why should we wish to know the rate of interest on those notes, or the time? It was war-time.

Mr. Hopper filled out his check, and presently departed. It was the signal for the little force which remained to leave. Outside, in the store; Ephum paced uneasily, wondering why his master did not come out. Presently he crept to the door of the office, pushed it open, and beheld Mr. Carvel with his head bowed, down in his hands.

“Marse Comyn!” he cried, “Marse Comyn!”

The Colonel looked up. His face was haggard.

“Marse Comyn, you know what I done promise young MISS long time ago, befo'—befo' she done left us?”

“Yes, Ephum.”

He saw the faithful old negro but dimly. Faintly he heard the pleading voice.

“Marse Comyn, won' you give Ephum a pass down, river, ter fotch Cap'n Lige?”

“Ephum,” said the Colonel, sadly, “I had a letter from the Captain yesterday. He is at Cairo. His boat is a Federal transport, and he is in Yankee pay.”

Ephum took a step forward, appealingly, “But de Cap'n's yo' friend, Marse Comyn. He ain't never fo'get what you done fo' him, Marse Comyn. He ain't in de army, suh.”

“And I am the Captain's friend, Ephum,” answered the Colonel, quietly. “But I will not ask aid from any man employed by the Yankee Government. No—not from my own brother, who is in a Pennsylvania regiments.”

Ephum shuffled out, and his heart was lead as he closed the store that night.

Mr. Hopper has boarded a Fifth Street car, which jangles on with many halts until it comes to Bremen, a German settlement in the north of the city. At Bremen great droves of mules fill the street, and crowd the entrances of the sale stables there. Whips are cracking like pistol shots, Gentlemen with the yellow cavalry stripe of the United States Army are pushing to and fro among the drivers and the owners, and fingering the frightened animals. A herd breaks from the confusion and is driven like a whirlwind down the street, dividing at the Market House. They are going to board the Government transport—to die on the battlefields of Kentucky and Missouri.

Mr. Hopper alights from the car with complacency. He stands for a while on a corner, against the hot building, surveying the busy scene, unnoticed. Mules! Was it not a prophecy,—that drove which sent him into Mr. Carvel's store?

Presently a man with a gnawed yellow mustache and a shifty eye walks out of one of the offices, and perceives our friend.

“Howdy, Mr. Hopper?” says he.

Eliphalet extends a hand to be squeezed and returned. “Got them vouchers?” he asks. He is less careful of his English here.

“Wal, I jest reckon,” is the answer: The fellow was interrupted by the appearance of a smart young man in a smart uniform, who wore an air of genteel importance. He could not have been more than two and twenty, and his face and manners were those of a clerk. The tan of field service was lacking on his cheek, and he was black under the eyes.

“Hullo, Ford,” he said, jocularly.

“Howdy, Cap,” retorted the other. “Wal, suh, that last lot was an extry, fo' sure. As clean a lot as ever I seed. Not a lump on 'em. Gov'ment ain't cheated much on them there at one-eighty a head, I reckon.”

Mr. Ford said this with such an air of conviction and such a sober face that the Captain smiled. And at the same time he glanced down nervously at the new line of buttons on his chest.

“I guess I know a mule from a Newfoundland dog by this time,” said he.

“Wal, I jest reckon,” asserted Mr. Ford, with a loud laugh. “Cap'n Wentworth, allow me to make you acquainted with Mr. Hopper. Mr. Hopper, Cap'n Wentworth.”

The Captain squeezed Mr. Hoppers hand with fervor. “You interested in mules, Mr. Hopper?” asked the military man.

“I don't cal'late to be,” said. Mr. Hopper. Let us hope that our worthy has not been presented as being wholly without a sense of humor. He grinned as he looked upon this lamb in the uniform of Mars, and added, “I'm just naturally patriotic, I guess. Cap'n, 'll you have a drink?”

“And a segar,” added Mr. Ford.

“Just one,” says the Captain. “It's d—d tiresome lookin' at mules all day in the sun.”

Well for Mr. Davitt that his mission work does not extend to Bremen, that the good man's charity keeps him at the improvised hospital down town. Mr. Hopper has resigned the superintendency of his Sunday School, it is true, but he is still a pillar of the church.

The young officer leans against the bar, and listens to stories by Mr. Ford, which it behooves no church members to hear. He smokes Mr. Hopper's cigar and drinks his whiskey. And Eliphalet understands that the good Lord put some fools into the world in order to give the smart people a chance to practise their talents. Mr. Hopper neither drinks nor smokes, but he uses the spittoon with more freedom in this atmosphere.

When at length the Captain has marched out, with a conscious but manly air, Mr. Hopper turns to Ford—“Don't lose no time in presenting them vouchers at headquarters,” says he. “Money is worth something now. And there's grumbling about this Department in the Eastern papers, If we have an investigation, we'll whistle. How much to-day?”

“Three thousand,” says Mr. Ford. He tosses off a pony of Bourbon, but his face is not a delight to look upon, “Hopper, you'll be a d—d rich man some day.”

“I cal'late to.”

“I do the dirty work. And because I ain't got no capital, I only get four per cent.”

“Don't one-twenty a day suit you?”

“You get blasted near a thousand. And you've got horse contracts, and blanket contracts besides. I know you. What's to prevent my goin' south when the vouchers is cashed?” he cried. “Ain't it possible?”

“I presume likely,” said Mr. Hopper, quietly. “Then your mother'll have to move out of her little place.”

CHAPTER II. NEWS FROM CLARENCE

The epithet aristocrat may become odious and fatal on the banks of the Mississippi as it was on the banks of the Seine. Let no man deceive himself! These are fearful times. Thousands of our population, by the sudden stoppage of business, are thrown out of employment. When gaunt famine intrudes upon their household, it is but natural that they should inquire the cause. Hunger began the French Revolution.

Virginia did not read this editorial, because it appeared in that abhorred organ of the Mudsills, the 'Missouri Democrat.' The wheels of fortune were turning rapidly that first hot summer of the war time. Let us be thankful that our flesh and blood are incapable of the fury of the guillotine. But when we think calmly of those days, can we escape without a little pity for the aristocrats? Do you think that many of them did not know hunger and want long before that cruel war was over?

How bravely they met the grim spectre which crept so insidiously into their homes!

“Virginia, child.” said Mrs. Colfax, peevishly, one morning as they sat at breakfast, “why do you persist it wearing that old gown? It has gotten on my nerves, my dear. You really must have something new made, even if there are no men here to dress for.”

“Aunt Lillian, you must not say such things. I do not think that I ever dressed to please men.”

“Tut, tut; my dear, we all do. I did, even after married your uncle. It is natural. We must not go shabby in such times as these, or be out of fashion, Did you know that Prince Napoleon was actually coming here for a visit this autumn? We must be ready for him. I am having a fitting at Miss Elder's to-day.”

Virginia was learning patience. She did not reply as she poured out her aunt's coffee.

“Jinny,” said that lady, “come with me to Elder's, and I will give you some gowns. If Comyn had been as careful of his own money as of mine, you could dress decently.”

“I think I do dress decently, Aunt Lillian,” answered the girl. “I do not need the gowns. Give me the money you intend to pay for them, and I can use it for a better purpose.”

Mrs. Colfax arranged her lace pettishly.

“I am sick and tired of this superiority, Jinny.” And in the same breath. “What would you do with it?”

Virginia lowered her voice. “Hodges goes through the lines to-morrow night. I should send it to Clarence.” “But you have no idea where Clarence is.”

“Hodges can find him.”

“Pshaw!” exclaimed her aunt, “I would not trust him. How do you know that he will get through the Dutch pickets to Price's army? Wasn't Souther captured last week, and that rash letter of Puss Russell's to Jack Brinsmade published in the Democrat?” She laughed at the recollection, and Virginia was fain to laugh too. “Puss hasn't been around much since. I hope that will cure her of saying what she thinks of people.”

“It won't,” said Virginia.

“I'll save my money until Price drives the Yankees from the state, and Clarence marches into the city at the head of a regiment,” Mrs. Colfax went on, “It won't be long now.”

Virginia's eyes flashed.

“Oh, you can't have read the papers. And don't you remember the letter Maude had from George? They need the bare necessities of life, Aunt Lillian. And half of Price's men have no arms at all.”

“Jackson,” said Mrs. Colfax, “bring me a newspaper. Is there any news to-day?”

“No,” answered Virginia, quickly. “All we know is that Lyon has left Springfield to meet our troops, and that a great battle is coming, Perhaps—perhaps it is being fought to-day.”

Mrs. Colfax burst into tears, “Oh, Jinny,” she cried, “how can you be so cruel!”

That very evening a man, tall and lean, but with the shrewd and kindly eye of a scout, came into the sitting-room with the Colonel and handed a letter to Mrs. Colfax. In the hall he slipped into Virginia's hand another, in a “Jefferson Davis” envelope, and she thrust it in her gown—the girl was on fire as he whispered in her ear that he had seen Clarence, and that he was well. In two days an answer might be left at Mr. Russell's house. But she must be careful what she wrote, as the Yankee scouts were active.

Clarence, indeed, had proven himself a man. Glory and uniform became him well, but danger and deprivation better. The words he had written, careless and frank and boyish, made Virginia's heart leap with pride. Mrs. Colfax's letter began with the adventure below the Arsenal, when the frail skiff had sunk near the island, He told how he had heard the captain of his escort sing out to him in the darkness, and how he had floated down the current instead, until, chilled and weary, he had contrived to seize the branches of a huge tree floating by. And how by a miracle the moon had risen. When the great Memphis packet bore down upon him, he had, been seen from her guards, and rescued and made much of; and set ashore at the next landing, for fear her captain would get into trouble. In the morning he had walked into the country, first providing himself with butternuts and rawhide boots and a bowie-knife. Virginia would never have recognized her dashing captain of dragoons in this guise.

The letter was long for Clarence, and written under great difficulties from date to date. For nearly a month he had tramped over mountains and across river bottoms, waiting for news of an organized force of resistance in Missouri. Begging his way from cabin to cabin, and living on greasy bacon and corn pone, at length he crossed the swift Gasconade (so named by the French settlers because of its brawling ways) where the bridge of the Pacific railroad had been blown up by the Governor's orders. Then he learned that the untiring Lyon had steamed up the Missouri and had taken possession of Jefferson City without a blow, and that the ragged rebel force had fought and lost at Booneville. Footsore, but undaunted, he pushed on to join the army, which he heard was retreating southward along the western tier of counties of the state.

On the banks of the Osage he fell in with two other young amen in as bad a plight as himself. They travelled together, until one day some rough farmers with shotguns leaped out of a bunch of willows on the borders of a creek and arrested all three for Union spies. And they laughed when Mr. Clarence tried to explain that he had not long since been the dapper captain of the State Dragoons.

His Excellency, the Governor of Missouri (so acknowledged by all good Southerners), likewise laughed when Mr. Colfax and the two others were brought before him. His Excellency sat in a cabin surrounded by a camp which had caused the dogs of war to howl for very shame.

“Colfax!” cried the Governor. “A Colfax of St. Louis in butternuts and rawhide boots?”

“Give me a razor,” demanded Clarence, with indignation, “a razor and a suit of clothes, and I will prove it.” The Governor laughed once more.

“A razor, young man! A suit of clothes You know not what you ask.”

“Are there any gentlemen from St. Louis here?” George Catherwood was brought in,—or rather what had once been George. Now he was a big frontiersman with a huge blond beard, and a bowie, knife stuck into his trousers in place of a sword. He recognized his young captain of dragoons the Governor apologized, and Clarence slept that night in the cabin. The next day he was given a horse, and a bright new rifle which the Governor's soldiers had taken from the Dutch at Cole Camp on the way south, And presently they made a junction with three thousand more who were their images. This was Price's army, but Price had gone ahead into Kansas to beg the great McCulloch and his Confederates to come to their aid and save the state.