Strong works were going up along the mainland. The South Carolina forces had also seized Sullivan's Island, Morris Island, and James Island and were mounting guns upon them all. Circling batteries would soon threaten Sumter, and, however defiantly the flag there might snap in the breeze, it must come down.

As they were leaving the last of the batteries Harry noticed the broad, strong back and erect figure of a young man who stood with his hands in his pockets. He knew by his rigid attitude that he was looking intently at the battery and he knew, moreover, that it was Shepard. He wished to avoid him, and he wished also that his companion would not see him. He started to draw Colonel Talbot away, but it was too late. Shepard turned at that moment, and the colonel caught sight of his face.

"That man here among our batteries!" he exclaimed in a menacing tone.

"Come away, colonel!" said Harry hastily. "We don't know anything against him!"

But Shepard himself acted first. He came forward quickly, his hand extended, and his eyes expressing pleasure.

"I missed you this morning, Mr. Kenton," he said. "You were too early for me, but we meet, nevertheless, in a place of the greatest interest. And here is Colonel Talbot, too!"

Harry took the outstretched hand—he could not keep from liking Shepard—but Colonel Talbot, by turning slightly, avoided it without giving the appearance of brusqueness. His courtesy, concerning which the South Carolinians of his type were so particular, would not fail him, and, while he avoided the hand, he promptly introduced Shepard and St. Clair.

"I did not expect to find events so far advanced in Charleston," said Shepard. "With the Federal garrison concentrated in Sumter and the batteries going up everywhere, matters begin to look dangerous."

"I suppose that you have made a careful examination of all the batteries," said Colonel Talbot dryly.

"Casual, not careful," returned Shepard, in his usual cheerful tones. "It is impossible, at such a time, to keep from looking at Sumter, the batteries and all the other preparations. We would not be human if we didn't do it, and I've seen enough to know that the Yankees will have a hot welcome if they undertake to interfere with Charleston."

"You see truly," said Colonel Talbot, with some emphasis.

"A happy chance has put me at the same place as Mr. Kenton," continued Shepard easily. "I have letters which admitted me to the inn of Madame Delaunay, and I met him there last night. We are likely to see much of each other."

Colonel Leonidas Talbot raised his eyebrows. When they walked a little further he excused himself, saying that he was going to meet a committee of defense at St. Andrew's Hall, and Harry and Arthur, after talking a little longer with Shepard, left him near one of the batteries.

"I'm going to my bank," said St. Clair. "I'm already long overdue, but it will be forgiven at such a time as this. And I must say, Harry, that Colonel Talbot does not seem to like your acquaintance, Mr. Shepard."

"It is true, he doesn't, although I don't know just why," said Harry.

He saw Shepard at a distance three more times in the course of the day, but he sedulously avoided a meeting. He noticed that Shepard was always near the batteries and earthworks, but hundreds of others were near them, too. He did not return to Madame Delaunay's until evening, when it was time for dinner, where he found all the guests gathered, with the addition of Shepard.

Madame Delaunay assigned the new man to a seat near the foot of the table and the talk ran on much as it had done at the Christmas dinner, Major St. Hilaire leading, which Harry surmised was his custom. Shepard, who had been introduced to the others by Madame Delaunay, did not have much to say, nor did the South Carolinians warm to him as they had to Harry. A slight air of constraint appeared and Harry was glad when the dinner was over. Then he and St. Clair slipped away and spent the evening roaming about the city, looking at the old historic places, the fine churches, the homes of the wealthy and again at the earthworks and the harbor forts. The last thing Harry saw as he turned back toward Madame Delaunay's was that defiant flag of the Union, still waving above the dark and looming mass of old Sumter.

He was unlocking the door to his room when Shepard came briskly down the hall, carrying his candle in his hand.

"I want to tell you good-bye, Mr. Kenton," he said, "I thought we were to be together here at the inn for some time, but it is not to be so."

"What has happened?"

"It appears that my room had been engaged already by another man, beginning tomorrow morning. I was not informed of it when I came here, but Madame Delaunay has recalled the fact and I cannot doubt the word of a Charleston lady. It appears also that no other room is vacant, owing to the great number of people who have come into the city in the last week or two. So, I go."

He did not seem at all discouraged, his tone being as cheerful as ever, and he held out his hand. Harry liked this man, although it seemed that others did not, and when he released the hand he said:

"Take good care of yourself, Mr. Shepard. As I see it, the people of Charleston are not taking to you, and we do not know what is going to happen."

"Both statements are true," said Shepard with a laugh as he vanished down the hail. Nothing yet had been able to disturb his poise.

Harry went into his own room, and, throwing open his front window to let in fresh air, he heard the hum of voices. He looked down into a piazza and he saw two figures there, a man and a woman. They were Colonel Talbot and Madame Delaunay. He closed the blind promptly, feeling that unconsciously he had touched upon something hallowed, the thread of an old romance, a thread which, though slender, was nevertheless yet strong. Nor did he doubt that the suggestion of Colonel Leonidas Talbot had caused the speedy withdrawal of Shepard.

Several more days passed. Harry found that he was taken into the city's heart, and its spell was very strong upon him. He knew that much of his welcome was due to the powerful influence of Colonel Leonidas Talbot and to the warm friendship of Arthur St. Clair, who apparently was related to everybody. A letter came from his father, to whom he had written at once of his purpose, giving his approval, and sending him more money. Colonel Kenton wrote that he would come South himself, but he was needed in Kentucky, where a powerful faction was opposing their plans. He said that Harry's cousin, Dick Mason, had joined the home guards, raised in the interests of the old Union, and was drilling zealously.

The letter made the boy very thoughtful. The news about his cousin opened his eyes. The line of cleavage between North and South was widening into a gulf. But his spirits rose when he enlisted in the Palmetto Guards, and began to see active service. His quickness and zeal caused him to be used as a messenger, and he was continually passing back and forth among the Confederate leaders in Charleston. He also came into contact with the Union officers in Fort Sumter.

The relations of the town and the garrison were yet on a friendly basis. Men were allowed to come ashore and to buy fresh meat, vegetables, and other provisions. Strict orders kept anyone from offering violence or insult to them. Harry saw Anderson once, but he did not give him his name, deeming it best, because of the stand that he had taken, that no talk should pass between them.

He picked up a copy of the Mercury one morning and saw that a steamer, the Star of the West, was on its way to Charleston from a northern port with supplies for the garrison in Fort Sumter. He read the brief account, threw down the paper and rushed out for his friend, St. Clair. He knew that the coming of this vessel would fire the Charleston heart, and he was eager to be upon the scene.



CHAPTER IV

THE FIRST CAPITAL

Harry and Arthur stood two days later upon the sea wall of Charleston. Sumter rose up black and menacing in the clear wintry air. The muzzles of the cannon seemed to point into the very heart of the city, and over it, as ever, flew the defiant flag, the red and blue burning in vivid colors in the thin January sunshine. The heart of Charleston, that most intense of all Southern cities, had given forth a great throb. The Star of the West was coming from the North with provisions for the garrison of beleaguered Sumter. They would see her hull on the horizon in another hour.

Both Harry and Arthur were trembling with excitement. They were not on duty themselves, but they knew that all the South Carolina earthworks and batteries were manned. What would happen? It still seemed almost incredible to Harry that the people of the Union—at least of the Union that was—should fire upon one another, and his pulse beat hard and strong, while he waited with his comrade.

As they stood there gazing out to sea, looking for the black speck that should mark the first smoke of the Star of the West, Harry became conscious that another man was standing almost at his elbow. He glanced up and saw Shepard, who nodded to him.

"I did not know that I was standing by you until I had been here some time," said Shepard, as if he sought to indicate that he had not been seeking Harry and his comrade.

"I thought you had left Charleston," said Harry, who had not seen him for a week.

"Not at such a time," said Shepard, quietly. "So much of overwhelming interest is happening here that nobody who is alive can go away."

He put a pair of powerful glasses to his eyes and scanned the sea's rim. He looked a long time, and then his face showed excitement.

"It comes! It comes!" he exclaimed, more to himself than to Harry and Arthur.

"Is it the steamer? Is it the Star of the West?" exclaimed Harry forgetting all doubts of Shepard in the thrill of the moment.

"Yes, the Star of the West! It can be no other!" replied Shepard. "It can be no other! Take the glasses and see for yourself!"

When Harry looked he saw, where sea and sky joined, a black dot that gradually lengthened out into a small plume. It was not possible to recognize any ship at that distance, but he felt instinctively that it was the Star of the West. He passed the glasses to Arthur, who also took a look, and then drew a deep breath. Harry handed the glasses back to Shepard, saying:

"I see the ship, and I've no doubt that it's the Star of the West. Do you know anything about this vessel, Mr. Shepard?"

"I've heard that she's only a small steamer, totally unfitted for offense or defense."

"If the batteries fire upon her she's bound to go back."

"You put it right."

"Then, in effect, this is a test, and it rests with us whether or not to fire the first shot."

"I think you're right again."

Others also saw the growing black plume of smoke rising from the steamer's funnel, and a deep thrilling murmur ran through the crowd gathered on the sea walls. To many the vessel, steaming toward the harbor, was foreign, carrying a foreign flag, but to many others it was not and could never be so.

Shepard passed the glasses to the boy again, and he looked a second time at the ship, which was now taking shape and rising fast upon the water. Then he examined the walls of Sumter and saw men in blue moving there. They, too, were watching the coming steamer with the deepest anxiety.

Arthur took his second look also, and Shepard watched through the glasses a little longer. Then he put them in the case which he hung over his shoulder. Glasses were no longer needed. They could now see with the naked eye what was about to happen—if anything happened at all.

"It will soon be decided," said Shepard, and Harry noticed that his voice trembled. "If the Star of the West comes without interference up to the walls of Sumter there will be no war. The minds of men on both sides will cool. But if she is stopped, then—"

He broke off. Something seemed to choke in his throat. Harry and Arthur remained silent.

The ship rose higher and higher. Behind her hung the long black trail of her smoke. Soon, she would be in the range of the batteries. A deep shuddering sigh ran through the crowd, and then came moments of intense, painful silence. The little blue figures lining the walls of Sumter were motionless. The sea moved slowly and sleepily, its waters drenched in wintry sunshine.

On came the Star of the West, straight toward the harbor mouth.

"They will not fire! They dare not!" cried Shepard in a tense, strained whisper.

As the last word left his lips there was a heavy crash. A tongue of fire leaped from one of the batteries, followed by a gush of smoke, and a round shot whistled over the Star of the West. A tremendous shout came from the crowd, then it was silent, while that tongue of flame leaped a second time from the mouth of a cannon. Harry saw the water spring up, a spire of white foam, near the steamer, and a moment later a third shot clipped the water close by. He did not know whether the gunners were firing directly at the vessel or merely meant to warn her that she came nearer at her peril, but in any event, the effect was the same. South Carolina with her cannon was warning a foreign ship, the ship of an enemy, to keep away.

The Star of the West slowed down and stopped. Then another shout, more tremendous than ever, a shout of triumph, came from the crowd, but Harry felt a chill strike to his heart. Young St. Clair, too, was silent and Harry saw a shadow on his face. He looked for Shepard, but he was gone and the boy had not heard him go.

"It is all over," said St. Clair, with the certainty of prophecy. "The cannon have spoken and it is war. Why, where is Shepard?"

"I don't know. He seems to have slipped away after the first two or three shots."

"I suppose he considered the two or three enough. Look, Harry! The ship is turning! The cannon have driven her off!"

He was right. The Star of the West, a small steamer, unable to face heavy guns, had curved about and was making for the open sea. There was another tremendous shout from the crowd, and then silence. Smoke from the cannon drifted lazily over the town, and, caught by a contrary breeze, was blown out over the sea in the track of the retreating steamer, where it met the black trail left by that vessel's own funnel. The crowd, not cheering much now, but talking in rather subdued tones, dispersed.

Harry felt the chill down his spine again. These were great matters. He had looked upon no light event in the harbor of Charleston that day. He and Arthur lingered on the wall, watching that trailing black dot on the horizon, until it died away and was gone forever. The blue figures on the walls of Sumter had disappeared within, and the fortress stood up, grim and silent. Beyond lay the blue sea, shimmering and peaceful in the wintry sunshine.

"I suppose there is nothing to do but go back to Madame Delaunay's," said Harry.

"Nothing now," replied St. Clair, "but I fancy that later on we'll have all we can do."

"If not more."

"Yes, if not more."

Both boys were very grave and thoughtful as they walked to Madame Delaunay's most excellent inn. They realized that as yet South Carolina stood alone, but in the evening their spirits took a leap. News came that Mississippi also had gone out. Then other planting states followed fast. Florida was but a day behind Mississippi, Alabama went out the next day after Florida, Georgia eight days later, and Louisiana a week after Georgia. Exultation rose high in Charleston. All the Gulf and South Atlantic States were now sure, but the great border states still hung fire. There was a clamor for Virginia, Kentucky, Maryland and Missouri, and, though the promises from them came thick and fast, they did not go out. But the fiery energy of Charleston and the lower South was moving forward over all obstacles. Already arrangements had been made for a great convention at Montgomery in Alabama, and a new government would be formed differing but little from that of the old Union.

Now Harry began to hear much of a man, of whom he had heard his father speak, but who had slipped entirely from his mind. It was Jefferson Davis, a native of Kentucky like Abraham Lincoln. He had been a brave and gallant soldier at Buena Vista. It was said that he had saved the day against the overwhelming odds of Santa Anna. He had been Secretary of War in the old Union, now dissolved forever, according to the Charleston talk. Other names, too, began to grow familiar in Harry's ears. Much was said about the bluff Bob Toombs of Georgia, who feared no man and who would call the roll of his slaves at the foot of Bunker Hill monument. And there was little weazened Stephens, also of Georgia, a great intellect in a shrunken frame, and Benjamin of the oldest race, who had inherited the wisdom of ages. There would be no lack of numbers and courage and penetration when the great gathering met at Montgomery.

These were busy and on the whole happy days for Harry and St. Clair. Harry drilled with his comrade in the Palmetto Guards now, and, in due time, they were going to Montgomery to assist at the inauguration of the new president, whoever he might be. No vessel had come in place of the Star of the West. The North seemed supine, and Sumter, grim and dark though she might be, was alone. The flag of the Stars and Stripes still floated above it. Everywhere else the Palmetto flag waved defiance. But there was still no passage of arms between Sumter and its hostile neighbors. Small boats passed between the fort and the city, carrying provisions to the garrison, and also the news. The Charlestonians told Major Anderson of the states that went out, one by one, and the brave Kentuckian, eating his heart out, looked vainly toward the open sea for the help that never came.

Exultation still rose in Charleston. The ball was rolling finely. It was even gathering more speed and force than the most sanguine had expected. Every day brought the news of some new accession to the cause, some new triumph. The Alabama militia had seized the forts, Morgan and Gaines; Georgia had occupied Pulaski and Jackson; North Carolina troops had taken possession of the arsenal at Fayetteville, and those of Florida on the same day had taken the one at Chattahoochee. Everywhere the South was accumulating arms, ammunition and supplies for use—if they should be needed. The leaders had good cause for rejoicing. They were disappointed in nothing, save that northern tier of border states which still hesitated or refused.

Harry in these days wondered that so little seemed to happen in the North. His strong connections and his own good manners had made him a favorite in Charleston. He went everywhere, perhaps most often to the office of the Mercury, controlled by the powerful Rhett family, among the most fiery of the Southern leaders. Exchanges still came there from the northern cities, but he read little in them about preparations for war. Many attacked Buchanan, the present President, for weakness, and few expected anything better from the uncouth western figure, Lincoln, who would soon succeed him.

Meanwhile the Confederate convention at Montgomery was acting. In those days apathy and delay seemed to be characteristic of the North, courage and energy of the South. The new government was being formed with speed and decision. Jefferson Davis, it was said, would be President, and Stephens of Georgia would be Vice-President.

The time for departure to Montgomery drew near. Harry and Arthur were in fine gray uniforms as members of the Palmetto Guards. Arthur, light, volatile, was full of pleased excitement. Harry also felt the thrill of curiosity and anticipation, but he had been in Charleston nearly six weeks now, and while six weeks are short, they had been long enough in such a tense time to make vital changes in his character. He was growing older fast. He was more of a man, and he weighed and measured things more. He recognized that Charleston, while the second city of the South in size and the first in leadership, was only Charleston, after all, far inferior in weight and numbers to the great cities of the North. Often he looked toward the North over the vast, intervening space and tried to reckon what forces lay there.

The evening before their departure they sat on the wide piazza that swept along the entire front of the inn of Madame Delaunay. Colonel Leonidas Talbot and Major Hector St. Hilaire sat with them. They, too, were going to Montgomery. Mid-February had passed, and the day had been one of unusual warmth for that time of the year, like a day in full spring. The wind from the south was keen with the odor of fresh foliage and of roses, and of faint far perfumes, unknown but thrilling. A sky of molten silver clothed city, bay, and forts in enchantment. Nothing seemed further away than war, yet they had to walk but a little distance to see the defiant flag over Sumter, and the hostile Palmetto flags waving not far away.

Madame Delaunay appeared in the doorway. She was dressed as usual in white and her shining black hair was bound with the slender gold fillet.

"We are going away tomorrow, Madame," said Colonel Talbot, "and I know that we cannot find in Montgomery any such pleasant entertainment as my young friends have enjoyed here."

Harry was confirmed in his belief that the thread of an old romance still formed a firm tie between them.

"But you will come back," said Madame Delaunay. "You will come back very soon. Surely, they will not try to keep us from going our ways in peace."

A sudden thrill of passion and feeling had appeared in her voice.

"That no one can tell, Julie," said Colonel Talbot very gravely—it was the first time that Harry had ever heard him call her by her first name—"but it seems to me that I should tell what I think. A Union such as ours has been formed amid so much suffering and hardship, courage and danger, that it is not to be broken in a day. We may come back soon from Montgomery, Julie, but I see war, a great and terrible war, a war, by the side of which those we have had, will dwindle to mere skirmishes. I shut my eyes, but it makes no difference. I see it close at hand, just the same."

Madame Delaunay sighed.

"And you, Major St. Hilaire?" she said.

"There may be a great war, Madame Delaunay," he said, "I fear that Colonel Talbot is right, but we shall win it."

Colonel Talbot said nothing more, nor did Madame Delaunay. Presently she went back into the house. After a long silence the colonel said:

"If I were not sure that our friend Shepard had left Charleston long since, I should say that the figure now passing in the street is his."

A small lawn filled with shrubbery stretched before the house, but from the piazza they could see into the street. Harry, too, caught a glimpse of a passing figure, and like the colonel he was sure that it was Shepard.

"It is certainly he!" he exclaimed.

"After him!" cried Colonel Talbot, instantly all action. "As sure as we live that man is a spy, drawing maps of our fortifications, and I should have warned the Government before."

The four sprang from the piazza and ran into the street. Harry, although he had originally felt no desire to seize Shepard, was carried along by the impetus. It was the first man-hunt in which he had ever shared, and soon he caught the thrill from the others. The colonel, no doubt, was right. Shepard was a spy and should be taken. He ran as fast as any of them.

Shepard, if Shepard it was, heard the swift footsteps behind him, glanced back and then ran.

"After him!" cried Major St. Hilaire, his volatile blood leaping high. "His flight shows that he's a spy!"

But the fugitive was a man of strength and resource. He ran swiftly into a cross street, and when they followed him there he leaped over the low fence of a lawn, surrounding a great house, darted into the shrubbery, and the four, although they were joined by others, brought by the alarm, sought for him in vain.

"After all, I'm not sorry he got away," said Colonel Talbot, as they walked back to Madame Delaunay's. "There is no war, and hence, in a military sense, there can be no spies. I doubt whether we should have known what to do with him had we caught him, but I am certain that he has complete maps of all our defenses."

Harry, with Arthur and many others whom he knew, started the next day for Montgomery. Jefferson Davis had already been chosen President, and Alexander H. Stephens Vice-President, and Davis was on his way from his Mississippi home to the same town to be inaugurated. In the excitement over the great event, so near at hand, Harry forgot all about Shepard and his doubts. He bade a regretful farewell to Charleston, which had taken him to its heart, and turned his face to this new place, much smaller, and, as yet, without fame.

Harry, Arthur, and their older friends began the momentous journey across the land of King Cotton, passing through the very heart of the lower South, as they went from Charleston to Montgomery. Davis and Stephens would be inaugurated on the 17th of that month, which was February. But the Palmetto Guards would arrive at Montgomery before Davis himself, who had left his home and who would cross Mississippi, Alabama, and a corner of Georgia before he reached the new capital to receive the chief honor.

Trains were slow and halting, and Harry had ample opportunity to see the land and the people who crowded to the stations to bring news or to hear it. He crossed a low, rolling country with many rivers, great and small. He saw large houses, with white-pillared porticos, sitting back among the trees, and swarms of negro cabins. Much of the region was yet dead and brown from the touch of winter, but in the valleys the green was appearing. Spring was in the air, and the spirits of the Palmetto Guards, nearly all of whom were very young, were rising with it.

The train drew into Montgomery, the little city that stood on the high banks of the Alabama River. Here they were in the very heart of the new Confederacy, and Harry and Arthur were eager to see the many famous Southern men who were gathered there to welcome the new President. Jefferson Davis was expected on the morrow, and would be inaugurated on the day following. They heard that his coming was already a triumphal progress. Vast crowds held his train at many points, merely to see him and listen to a few words. Generally he spoke in the careful, measured manner that was natural to him, but it was said that in Opelika, in Alabama, he had delivered a warning to the North, telling the Northern states that they would interfere with the Southern at their peril.

Harry and Arthur, despite their eagerness to see the town and the great men, were compelled to wait. The Palmetto Guards went into camp on the outskirts, and their commander, Colonel Leonidas Talbot, late of the United States Army, was very strict in discipline. His second in command, Major Hector St. Hilaire, was no whit inferior to him in sternness. Harry had expected that this old descendant of Huguenots, reared in the soft air of Charleston, would be lax, or at least easy of temper, but whatever of military rigor Colonel Talbot forgot, Major St. Hilaire remembered.

The guards were about three hundred in number, and their camp was pitched on a hill, a half mile from the town. The night, after a beautiful day, turned raw and chill, warning that early spring, even in those southern latitudes, was more of a promise than a performance. But the young troops built several great fires and those who were not on guard basked before the glow.

Harry had helped to gather the wood, most of which was furnished by the people living near, and his task was ended. Now he sat on his blanket with his back against a log and, with a great feeling of comfort, saw the flames leap up and grow. The cooks were at work, and there was an abundance of food. They had brought much themselves, and the enthusiastic neighbors doubled and tripled their supplies. The pleasant aroma of bacon and ham frying over the coals and of boiling coffee arose. He was weary from the long journey and the work that he had done, and he was hungry, too, but he was willing to wait.

All the troops were South Carolinians except Harry and perhaps a dozen others. They were a pleasant lot, quick of temper, perhaps, but he liked them. Their prevailing note was high spirits, and the most cheerful of all was a tall youth named Tom Langdon, whose father owned one of the smaller of the sea islands off the South Carolina coast. He was quite sanguine that everything would go exactly as they wished. The Yankees would not fight, but, if by any chance they did fight, they would get a most terrible thrashing. Tom, with a tin cup full of coffee in one hand and a tin plate containing ham and bread in the other, sat down by the side of Harry and leaned back against the log also. Harry had never seen a picture of more supreme content than his face showed.

"In thirty-six hours we'll have a new President, do you appreciate that fact, Harry Kenton?" asked young Langdon.

"I do," replied Harry, "and it makes me think pretty hard."

"What's the use of worrying? Why, it's just the biggest picnic that I ever took part in, and if the Yankees object to our setting up for ourselves I fancy we'll have to go up there and teach 'em to mind their own business. I wouldn't object, Harry, to a march at somebody else's expense to New York and Philadelphia and Boston. I suppose those cities are worth seeing."

Harry laughed. Langdon's good spirits were contagious even to a nature much more serious.

"I don't look on it as a picnic altogether," he said. "The Yankees will fight very hard, but we live on the land almost wholly, and the grass keeps on growing, whether there's war or not. Besides, we're an outdoor people, good horsemen, hunters, and marksmen. These things ought to help us."

"They will and we'll help ourselves most," said Langdon gaily. "I'm going to be either a general or a great politician, Harry. If it's a long war, I'll come out a general; if it's a short one, I mean to enter public life afterward and be a great orator. Did you ever hear me speak, Harry?"

"No, thank Heaven," replied Harry fervently. "Don't you think that South Carolina has enough orators now? What on earth do all your people find to talk about?"

Langdon laughed with the utmost good nature.

"We fire the human heart," he replied. "'Words, words, empty words,' it is not so. Words in themselves are often deeds, because the deeds start from them or are caused by them. The world has been run with words. All great actions result from them. Now, if we should have a big war, it would be said long afterward that it was caused by words, words spoken at Charleston and Boston, though, of course, the things they say at Boston are wrong, while those said at Charleston are right."

Harry laughed in his turn.

"It's quite certain," he said, "that you'll have no lack of words yourself. I imagine that the sign over your future office will read, 'Thomas Langdon, wholesale dealer in words. Any amount of any quality supplied on demand.'"

"Not a bad idea," said Langdon. "You mean that as satire, but I'll do it. It's no small accomplishment to be a good dictionary. But my thoughts turn back to war. You think I never look beyond today, but I believe the North will come up against us. And you'll have to go into it with all your might, Harry. You are of fighting stock. Your father was in the thick of it in Mexico. Remember the lines:

"We were not many, we who stood Before the iron sleet that day; Yet many a gallant spirit would Give half his years if he but could Have been with us at Monterey."

"I remember them," said Harry, much stirred. "I have heard my father quote them. He was at Monterey and he says that the Mexicans fought well. I was at Frankfort, the capital of our state, myself with him, when they unveiled the monument to our Kentucky dead and I heard them read O'Hara's poem which he wrote for that day. I tell you, Langdon, it makes my blood jump every time I hear it."

He recited in a sort of low chant:

"The neighing troop, the flashing blade, The bugle's stirring blast, The charge, the dreadful cannonade, The din and shout are past.

"Nor war's wild note, nor glory's peal Shall fill with fierce delight Those breasts that never more may feel The rapture of the fight."

They were very young and, in some respects, it was a sentimental time, much given to poetry. As the darkness closed in and the lights of the little city could be seen no longer, their thoughts took a more solemn turn. Perhaps it would be fairer to call them emotions or feelings rather than thoughts. In the day all had been talk and lightness, but in the night omens and presages came. Langdon was the first to rouse himself. He could not be solemn longer than three minutes.

"It's certain that the President is coming tomorrow, Harry, isn't it?" he asked.

"Beyond a doubt. He is so near now that they fix the exact hour, and the Guards are among those to receive him."

"I wonder what he looks like. They say he is a very great man."

They were interrupted by St. Clair, who threw himself down on a blanket beside them.

"That's the third cup of coffee you're taking, Tom," he said to Langdon. "Here, give it to me. I've had none."

Langdon obeyed and St. Clair drank thirstily. Then he took from the inside pocket of his coat a newspaper which he unfolded deliberately.

"This came from Montgomery," he said. "I heard you two quoting poetry, and I thought I'd come over and read some to you. What do you think of this? It was written by a fellow in Boston named Holmes and published when he heard that South Carolina had seceded. He calls it: 'Brother Jonathan's Lament for Sister Caroline.'"

"Read it!" exclaimed the others.

"Here goes:

"She has gone—she has left us in passion and pride, Our stormy-browed sister so long at our side! She has torn her own star from our firmament's glow, And turned on her brother the face of a foe.

"O Caroline, Caroline, child of the sun, We can never forget that our hearts have been one, Our foreheads both sprinkled in Liberty's name From the fountain of blood with the fingers of flame."

St. Clair read well in a full, round voice, and when he stopped with the second verse Harry said:

"It sounds well. I like particularly that expression, 'the fingers of flame.' After all, there's some grief in parting company, breaking up the family, so to speak."

"But he's wrong when he says we left in passion and pride," exclaimed Langdon. "In pride, yes, but not in passion. We may be children of the sun, too, but I've felt some mighty cold winds sweeping down from the Carolina hills, cold enough to make fur-lined overcoats welcome. But we'll forget about cold winds and everything else unpleasant, before such a jolly fire as this."

They finished an abundant supper, and soon relapsed into silence. The flames threw out such a generous heat that they were content to rest their backs against the log, and gaze sleepily into the coals. Beyond the fire, in the shadow, they saw the sentinels walking up and down. Harry felt for the first time that he was really within the iron bands of military discipline. He might choose to leave the camp and go into Montgomery, but he would choose and nothing more. He could not go. Colonel Leonidas Talbot and Major Hector St. Hilaire were friends, but they were masters also, and he was recognizing sooner than some of the youths around him that it was not merely play and spectacle that awaited them.



CHAPTER V

THE NEW PRESIDENT

Their great day came. Clear sunlight shone over the town, the hills and the brown waters of the Alabama. It was a peculiarly Southern country, different, Harry thought, from his own Kentucky, more enthusiastic, perhaps, and less prone to count the cost. The people had come not only on the railroad, but they were arriving now from far places in wagons and on horseback. Men of distinction, almost universally, wore black clothes, the coats very long, black slouch hats, wide of brim, and white shirts with glistening or heavily ruffled fronts. There were also many black people in a state of pleasurable excitement, although the war—if one should come—would be over them.

Harry and his two young friends were anxious to visit Montgomery and take a good look at the town, but they did not ask for leave, as Colonel Talbot had already sternly refused all such applications. The military law continued to lie heavily upon them, and, soon after they finished a solid breakfast with appetites sharpened by the open air, they were ordered to fall into line. Arrayed in their fine new uniforms, to which the last touch of neatness had been added, they marched away to the town. They might see it as a company, but not as individuals.

They walked with even step along the grassy slopes, their fine appearance drawing attention and shouts of approval from the dense masses of people of all ages and all conditions of life who were gathering. Harry, a cadet with a small sword by his side, felt his heart swell as he trod the young turf, and heard the shouting and applause. The South Carolinians were the finest body of men present, and they were conscious of it. Eyes always to the front, they marched straight on, apparently hearing nothing, but really hearing everything.

They reached the houses presently and Harry saw the dome of the capitol on its high hill rising before them, but a moment or two later the Guards, with the Palmetto flag waving proudly in front, wheeled and marched toward the railroad station. There they halted in close ranks and stood at attention. Although the young soldiers remained immovable, there was not a heart in the company that did not throb with excitement. Colonel Talbot and Major St. Hilaire were a little in advance, erect and commanding figures.

Other troops, volunteer companies, were present and they spread to right and left of the South Carolinians. Behind and everywhere except in the cleared space before them gathered the people, a vast mass through which ran the hum and murmur of expectancy. Overhead, the sun leaped out and shone for a while with great brilliancy. "A good omen," many said. And to Harry it all seemed good, too. The excitement, the enthusiasm were contagious. If any prophet of evil was present he had nothing to say.

A jet of smoke standing black against the golden air appeared above a hill, and then came the rumble of a train. It was that which bore the President elect, coming fast, and a sudden great shout went up from the multitude, followed by silence, broken only by the heavy breathing of so many. Harry's heart leaped again, but his will kept his body immovable.

The rumble became a roar, and the jet of smoke turned to a cloud. Then the train drew into the station and stopped. The people began a continuous shout, bands played fiercely, and a tall, thin man of middle years, dressed in black broadcloth, descended from a coach. All the soldiers saluted, the bands played more fiercely than ever, and the shouting of the crowd swelled in volume.

It was the first time that Harry had ever seen Jefferson Davis, and the face, so unlike that which he expected, impressed him. He saw a cold, gray, silent man with lips pressed tightly together. He did not behold here the Southern fire and passion of which he was hearing so much talk, but rather the reserve and icy resolve of the far North. Harry at first felt a slight chill, but it soon passed. It was better at such a time to have a leader of restraint and dignity than the homely joker, Lincoln, of whom such strange tales came.

Mr. Davis lifted his black hat to the shouting crowd, and bowed again and again. But he did not smile. His face remained throughout set in the same stern mold. As the troops closed up, he entered the carriage waiting for him, and drove slowly toward the heart of the city, the multitude following and breaking at intervals into shouts and cheers.

The Palmetto Guards marched on the right of the carriage, and Harry was able to watch the President-elect all the time. The face held his attention. Its sternness did not relax. It was the face of a man who had seen the world, and who believed in the rule of strength.

The procession led on to a hotel, a large building with a great portico in front. Here it stopped, the bands ceased to play, Mr. Davis descended from the carriage and entered the portico, where a group of men famous in the South stood, ready to welcome him. The troops drew up close to the portico, and back of them, every open space was black with people.

Harry, in the very front rank, saw and heard it all. Mr. Davis stopped as soon as he reached the portico, and Yancey, the famous orator of Alabama, to whom Harry had delivered his letters in Charleston, stepped forward, and, in behalf of the people of the South, made a speech of welcome in a clear, resonant, and emphatic tone. The applause compelled him to stop at times, but throughout, Mr. Davis stood rigid and unsmiling. His countenance expressed none of his thoughts, whatever they may have been. Harry's eyes never wandered from his face, except to glance now and then at the weazened, shrunken, little man who stood near him, Alexander H. Stephens of Georgia, who would take the oath of office as Vice-President of the new Confederacy. He had been present throughout the convention as a delegate from Georgia, and men talked of the mighty mind imprisoned in the weak and dwarfed body.

Harry thrilled more than once as the new President spoke on in calm, measured tones. He was glad to be present at the occurrence of great events, and he was glad to witness this gathering of the mighty. The tide of youth flowed high in him, and he believed himself fortunate to have been at Charleston when the cannon met the Star of the West, and yet more fortunate to be now at Montgomery, when the head of the new nation was taking up his duties.

His gaze wandered for the first time from the men in the portico to the crowd without that rimmed them around. His eyes, without any particular purpose, passed from face to face in the front ranks, and then stopped, arrested by a countenance that he had little expected to see. It was the shadow, Shepard, standing there, and listening, and looking as intently as Harry himself. It was not an evil face, cut clearly and eager, but Harry was sorry that he had come. If Colonel Talbot's beliefs about him were true, this was a bad place for Shepard.

But his eyes went back to the new President and the men on the portico before him. The first scene in the first act of a great drama, a mighty tragedy, had begun, and every detail was of absorbing interest to him. Shepard was forgotten in an instant.

Harry noticed that Mr. Davis never mentioned slavery, a subject which was uppermost in the minds of all, North and South, but he alluded to the possibility of war, and thought the new republic ought to have an army and navy. The concluding paragraph of his speech, delivered in measured but feeling tones, seemed very solemn and serious to Harry.

"It is joyous in the midst of perilous times," he said, "to look around upon a people united in heart, where one purpose of high resolve animates and actuates the whole; where the sacrifices to be made are not weighed in the balance against honor and right and liberty and equality. Obstacles may retard, but they cannot long prevent the progress of a movement sanctified in justice and sustained by a virtuous people. Reverently let us invoke the God of our fathers to guide and protect us in our efforts to perpetuate the principles which by his blessing they were able to vindicate, establish, and transmit to their posterity. With the continuance of his favor ever gratefully acknowledged we may look hopefully forward to success, to peace and to prosperity."

The final words were received with a mighty cheer which rose and swelled thrice, and again. Jefferson Davis stood calmly through it all, his face expressing no emotion. The thin lips were pressed together tightly. The points of his high collar touched his thick, close beard. He wore a heavy black bow tie and his coat had broad braided lapels. His hair was thick and slightly long, and his face, though thin, was full of vitality. It seemed to Harry that the grave, slightly narrowed eyes emitted at this moment a single flash of triumph or at least of fervor.

Mr. Davis was sworn in and Mr. Stephens after him, and when the shouting and applause sank for the last time, the great men withdrew into the hotel, and the troops marched away. The head of the new republic had been duly installed, and the separation from the old Union was complete. The enthusiasm was tremendous, but Harry, like many others, had an underlying and faint but persistent feeling of sadness that came from the breaking of old ties. Nor had any news come telling that Kentucky was about to join her sister states of the South.

The Palmetto Guards marched back to their old camp, and Harry, Langdon, and St. Clair obtained leave of absence to visit the town. Youth had reasserted itself and Harry was again all excitement and elation. It seemed to him at the moment that he was a boy no longer. The Tacitus lying peacefully in his desk was forgotten. He was a man in a man's great world, doing a man's great work.

But both he and his comrades had all the curiosity and zest of boys as they walked about the little city in the twilight, looking at everything of interest, visiting the Capitol, and then coming back to the Exchange Hotel, which sheltered for a night so many of their great men.

They stayed a while in the lobby of the hotel, which was packed so densely that Harry could scarcely breathe. Most of the men were of the tall, thin but extremely muscular type, either clean shaven or with short beards trimmed closely, and no mustaches. Black was the predominant color in clothing, and they talked with soft, drawling voices. But their talk was sanguine. Most of them asked what the North would do, but they believed that whatever she did do the South would go on her way. The smoke from the pipes and cigars grew thicker, and Harry, leaving his comrades in the crowd, walked out upon the portico.

The crisp, fresh air of the February night came like a heavenly tonic. He remained there a little while, breathing it in, expanding his lungs, and rejoicing. Then he walked over to the exact spot upon which Jefferson Davis had stood, when he delivered his speech of acceptance. He was so full of the scene that he shut his eyes and beheld it again. He tried to imagine the feelings of a man at such a moment, knowing himself the chosen of millions, and feeling that all eyes were upon him. Truly it would be enough to make the dullest heart leap.

He opened his eyes, and although he stood in darkness on the portico, he saw a dusky figure at the far edge of it, standing between two pillars, and looking in at one of the windows. The man, whoever he was, seemed to be intently watching those inside, and Harry saw at once that it was not a look of mere curiosity. It was the gaze of one who wished to understand as well as to know. He moved a little nearer. The figure dropped lightly to the ground and moved swiftly away. Then he saw that it was Shepard.

The boy's feelings toward Shepard had been friendly, but now he felt a sudden rush of hostility. All that Colonel Talbot had hinted about him was true. He was there, spying upon the Confederacy, seeking its inmost secrets, in order that he might report them to its enemies. Harry was armed. He and all his comrades carried new pistols at their belts, and driven by impulse he, too, dropped from the portico and followed Shepard.

He saw the dusky figure ahead of him still going swiftly, but with his hand on the pistol he followed at greater speed. A minute later Shepard turned into a small side street, and Harry followed him there. It was not much more than an alley, dark, silent, and deserted. Montgomery was a small town, in which people retired early after the custom of the times, and tonight, the collapse after so much excitement seemed to have sent them sooner than usual into their homes. It was evident that the matter would lie without interference between Shepard and himself.

Shepard went swiftly on and came soon to the outskirts of the town. He did not look back and Harry wondered whether he knew that he was pursued. The boy thought once or twice of using his pistol, but could not bring himself to do it. There was really no war, merely a bristling of hostile forces, and he could not fire upon anybody, especially upon one who had done him no harm.

Shepard led on, passed through a group of negro cabins, crossed an old cotton field, and entered a grove, with his pursuer not fifty yards behind. The grove was lighted well by the moon, and Harry dashed forward, pistol in hand, resolved at last to call a halt upon the fugitive. A laugh and the blue barrel of a levelled pistol met him. Shepard was sitting upon a fallen log facing him. The moon poured a mass of molten silver directly upon him, showing a face of unusual strength and power, set now with stern resolution. Harry's hand was upon the butt of his own pistol, but he knew that it was useless to raise it. Shepard held him at his mercy.

"Sit down, Mr. Kenton," said Shepard. "Here's another log, where you can face me. You feel chagrin, but you need not. I knew that you were following me, and hence I was able to take you by surprise. Now, tell me, what do you want?"

Harry took the offered log. He was naturally a lad of great courage and resolution, and now his presence of mind returned. He looked calmly at Shepard, who lowered his own pistol.

"I'm not exactly sure what I want," he replied with a little laugh, "but whatever it is, I know now that I'm not going to get it. I've walked into a trap. I believed that you were a spy, and it seemed to me that I ought to seize you. Am I right?"

Shepard laughed also.

"That's a frank question and you shall have a frank reply," he said. "The suspicions of your friend, Colonel Talbot, were correct. Yes, I am a spy, if one can be a spy when there is no war. I am willing to tell you, however, that Shepard is my right name, and I am willing to tell you also, that you and your Charleston friends little foresee the magnitude of the business upon which you have started. I don't believe there is any enmity between you and me and I can tell the thoughts that I have."

"Since you offered me no harm when you had the chance," said Harry, "I give my word that I will seek to offer none myself. Go ahead, I think you have more to say and I want to listen."

Shepard thrust his pistol in his belt and his face relaxed somewhat. As they faced each other on the logs they were not more than ten feet part and the moon poured a shower of silver rays upon both. Although Shepard was a few years the older, the faces showed a likeness, the same clearness of vision and strength of chin.

"I liked you, Harry Kenton, the first time I met you," said Shepard, "and I like you yet. When I saw that you were following me, I led you here in order to say some things to you. You are seeing me now probably for the last time. My spying is over for a long while, at least. A mile further on, a horse, saddled and bridled, is waiting for me. I shall ride all the remainder of the night, board a train in the morning, and, passing through Memphis and Louisville, I shall be in the North in forty-eight hours."

"And what then?"

"I shall tell to those who ought to know what I have seen in Charleston and Montgomery. I have seen the gathering of forces in the South, and I know the spirit that animates your people, but listen to me, Harry Kenton, do you think that a Union such as ours, formed as ours was, can be broken up in a moment, as you would smash a china plate? The forces on the other side are sluggish, but they are mighty. I foresee war, terrible war, crowded with mighty battles. Now, I'm going to offer you my hand and you are going to take it. Don't think any the less of me because I've been playing the spy. You may be one yourself before the year is out."

His manner was winning, and Harry took the offered hand. What right had he to judge? Each to his own opinion. Despite himself, he liked Shepard again.

"I'm glad I've known you, but at the same time I'm glad you're leaving," he said.

Shepard gave the boy's hand a hearty grasp, which was returned in kind. Then he turned and disappeared in the forest. Harry walked slowly back to Montgomery. Shepard had given him deep cause for thought. He approached the Exchange Hotel, thinking that he would find his friends there and return with them to the camp. But it was later than he had supposed. As he drew near he saw that nearly all the lights were out in the hotel, and the building was silent.

He was sure that St. Clair and Langdon had already gone to the camp, and he was about to turn away when he saw a window in the hotel thrown up and a man appear standing full length in the opening.

It was Jefferson Davis. The same flood of moonlight that had poured upon Shepard illuminated his face also. But it was not the face of a triumphant man. It was stern, sad, even gloomy. The thin lips were pressed together more tightly than ever, and the somber eyes looked out over the city, but evidently saw nothing there. Harry felt instinctively that his thoughts were like those of Shepard. He, too, foresaw a great and terrible war, and, so foreseeing, knew that this was no time to rejoice and glorify.

Harry, held by the strong spell of time and place, watched him a full half hour. It was certain now that Jefferson Davis was thinking, not looking at anything, because his head never moved, and his eyes were always turned in the same direction—Harry noticed at last that the direction was the North.

The new President stepped back, closed the window and no light came from his room. Harry hurried to the camp, where, as he had surmised, he found St. Clair and Langdon. He gave some excuse for his delay, and telling nothing of Shepard, wrapped himself in his blankets. Exhausted by the stirring events of the day and night he fell asleep at once.

Three days later they were on their way back to Charleston. They heard that the inauguration of the new President had not been well received by the doubtful states. Even the border slave states were afraid the lower South had been a little too hasty. But among the youths of the Palmetto Guards there was neither apprehension nor depression. They had been present at the christening of the new nation, and now they were going back to their own Charleston.

"Everything is for the best," said young Langdon, whose unfailing spirits bubbled to the brim, "we'll have down here the tightest and finest republic the world ever heard of. New Orleans will be the biggest city, but our own Charleston will always be the leader, its center of thought."

"What you need, Tom," said Harry, "is a center of thought yourself. Don't be so terribly sanguine and you may save yourself some smashes."

"I wouldn't gain anything even then," replied Langdon joyously. "I'll have such a happy time before the smash comes that I can afford to pay for it. I'm the kind that enjoys life. It's a pleasure to me just to breathe."

"I believe it is," said Harry, looking at him with admiration. "I think I'll call you Happy Tom."

"I take the name with pleasure," said Langdon. "It's a compliment to be called Happy Tom. Happy I was born and happy I am. I'm so happy I must sing:

"Ol Dan Tucker was a mighty fine man, He washed his face in the frying pan, He combed his hair with a wagon wheel And died with a toothache in his heel."

"That's a great poem," said a long North Carolina youth named Ransome, "but I've got something that beats it all holler. 'Ole Dan Tucker' is nothing to 'Aunt Dinah's Tribberlations.'"

"How does it go?" asked St. Clair.

"It's powerful pathetic, telling a tale of disaster and pain. The first verse will do, and here it is:

"Ole Aunt Dinah, she got drunk, Felled in a fire and kicked up a chunk, Red-hot coal popped in her shoe, Lord a-mighty! how de water flew!"

"We've had French and Italian opera in Charleston," said St. Clair, "and I've heard both in New Orleans, too, but nothing quite so moving as the troubles of Ole Dan Tucker and Ole Aunt Dinah."

They sang other songs and the Guards, who filled two coaches of a train, joined in a great swinging chorus which thundered above the rattle of the engine and the cars, so noisy in those days. Often they sang negro melodies with a plaintive lilt. The slave had given his music to his master. Harry joined with all the zest of an enthusiastic nature. The effect of Shepard's words and of the still, solemn face of Jefferson Davis, framed in the open window, was wholly gone.

Spring was now advancing. All the land was green. The trees were in fresh leaf, and when they stopped at the little stations in the woods, they could hear the birds singing in the deep forest. And as they sped across the open they heard the negroes singing, too, in their deep mellow voices in the fields. Then came the delicate flavor of flowers and Harry knew that they were approaching Charleston. In another hour they were in the city which was, as yet, the heart and soul of the Confederacy.

Charleston, with its steepled churches, its quaint houses, and its masses of foliage, much of it in full flower, seemed more attractive than ever to Harry. The city preserved its gay and light tone. It was crowded with people. All the rich planters were there. Society had never been more brilliant than during those tense weeks on the eve of men knew not what. But the Charlestonians were sure of one fact, the most important of all, that everything was going well. Texas had joined the great group of the South, and while the border states still hung back, they would surely join.

Harry found that the batteries and earthworks had increased in size and number, forming a formidable circle about the black mass of Sumter, above which the defiant flag still swung in the wind. The guards were distributed among the batteries, but St. Clair, Langdon, and Harry remained together. Toutant Beauregard, after having resigned the command at West Point, as the Southern leaders had expected, came to Charleston and took supreme command there. Harry saw him as he inspected the batteries, a small, dark man, French in look, as he was French in descent, full of nervous energy and vitality. He spoke approving words of all that had been done, and Harry, St. Clair and Tom, glowed with enthusiasm.

"Didn't I tell you that everything would come just right!" exclaimed Happy Tom. "We're the boys to do things. I heard today that they were preparing a big fleet in the North to relieve Sumter, but no matter how big it is, it won't be able to get into Charleston harbor. Will it, old fellow?"

He addressed his remarks to one of the great guns, and he patted the long, polished barrel. Harry agreed with him that Charleston harbor could be held inviolate. He did not believe that ships would have much chance against heavy cannon in earthworks.

He was back in Charleston several days before he had a chance to go to Madame Delaunay's. She was unfeignedly glad to see him, but Harry saw that she had lost some of her bright spirits.

"Colonel Talbot tells me," she said, "that mighty forces are gathering, and I am afraid, I am afraid for all the thousands of gallant boys like you, Harry."

But Harry had little fear for himself. Why should he, when the Southern cause was moving forward so smoothly? They heard a day or two later that the rail-splitter, Lincoln, had been duly inaugurated President of what remained of the old Union, although he had gone to Washington at an unexpected hour, and partly in disguise. On the same day the Confederacy adopted the famous flag of the Stars and Bars, and Harry and his friends were soon singing in unison and with fiery enthusiasm:

"Hurrah! Hurrah! for Southern rights, hurrah! Hurrah for the bonnie blue flag that bears a single star!"

The spring deepened and with it the tension and excitement. The warm winds from the South blew over Charleston, eternally keen with the odor of rose and orange blossom. The bay moved gently, a molten mass now blue, now green. The blue figures could be seen now and then on the black walls of Sumter, but the fortress was silent, although the muzzles of its guns always threatened.

Harry received several letters from his father. The latest stated that he might want him to return, but he was not needed yet. The state had proved more stubborn than he and his friends had expected. A powerful Union element had been disclosed, and there would be an obstinate fight at Frankfort over the question of going out. He would let him know when to come.

Harry was perhaps less surprised than his father over the conflict of opinion in Kentucky, but his thoughts soon slipped from it, returning to his absorption in the great and thrilling drama in Charleston, which was passing before his eyes, and of which he was a part.

April came, and the glory of the spring deepened. The winds blowing from the soft shores of the Gulf grew heavier with the odors of blossom and flower. But Charleston thrilled continually with excitement. Fort after fort was seized by the Southerners, almost without opposition and wholly without the shedding of blood. It seemed that the stars in their courses fought for the South, or at least it seemed so to the youthful Harry and his comrades.

"Didn't I tell you everything would come as we wished it?" said the sanguine Langdon. "Abe Lincoln may be the best rail-splitter that ever was, but I fancy he isn't such a terrible fighter."

"Let's wait and see," said Harry, with the impression of Shepard's warning words still strong upon him.

His caution was not in vain. That day the rulers of Charleston received a message from Abraham Lincoln that Sumter would be revictualled, whether Charleston consented or not. The news was spread instantly through the city and fire sprang up in the South Carolina heart. The population, increased far beyond its normal numbers by the influx from the country, talked of nothing else. Beauregard was everywhere giving quick, nervous orders, and always strengthening the already powerful batteries that threatened Sumter.



CHAPTER VI

SUMTER

Harry saw an increase of energy after the arrival of Beauregard. There were fresh rumors about the great fleet the North was going to send down for the relief of Sumter. Major Anderson, the commander in the fort, steadily refused all demands for surrender. It was said freely that the Northern States did not intend to let their Southern sisters go in peace. The Mercury, with all the power and fire of the Rhett family behind it, thundered continually for action. Sumter with its guns menacing the city should not be allowed to remain under the hostile flag.

It seemed to Harry afterward that he was in a sort of fever, not a fever that parched and burned, but a fever that made his pulse leap faster, and his heart long for the thrill of conflict. Often he sat with St. Clair and Langdon on their earthworks, and looked at Sumter.

"I wonder when the word will come for us to turn these big guns loose?" Langdon said one day, as he looked at the cannon. "Seems to me we ought to take Sumter before that fleet comes."

"But wouldn't it be better for them to make the first hostile movement, Happy?" asked Harry. "Then we'd put them in the wrong."

"What difference does it make if we should happen to fight them, anyhow? The question who began it we'd settle afterwards on victorious fields. Oh, we're bound to win, Harry! We can't help it. If there's any war, I expect inside of a year to sleep with my boots on in the President's bed in the White House, and then I'd go on to Philadelphia and New York and Boston and show myself as a fair specimen of the unconquerable Southern soldier."

"Happy," said Harry, in a rebuking tone, "you're the most terrific chatterer I ever heard. Before you've done anything whatever, you talk about having done it all."

"And they call us Charlestonians fiery boasters," said St. Clair. "Why, there's nobody in all Charleston who's half a match for this sea islander, Happy Tom Langdon."

Charleston received Lincoln's threat and gave it back. Many were glad that he had made the issue. The enthusiasm swelled yet further, when they heard that the Confederate envoys at Washington, treating for a peaceful separation, had left the capital at once when Lincoln had sent his message that Sumter would be relieved.

"It looks more like war now," said Langdon, with satisfaction, "and I may make my victorious march into the North after all."

Harry said nothing. As events marched forward on swift foot, he felt more intensely their gravity. For every month that had passed since he put the Tacitus in his desk at Pendleton Academy, the boy had grown a year in mind and thought. So, that rumor about the relieving fleet had come true and they might look for it in Charleston in two or three days.

Harry had his place in one of the batteries nearest Sumter, and he often went with Colonel Talbot on tours of inspection and once or twice he was in General Beauregard's own party. The fact that his father had been a graduate of West Point and for years an officer, was of the greatest service to him. In the little army of the United States before the Civil War, the officers constituted a family. Everybody knew who everybody else was, and those of the same age had been at West Point together. General Beauregard and Colonel Kenton had met often, and the Southern commander became very partial to the Colonel's son.

Harry was present when Beauregard, some of his more important officers and the civil authorities of Charleston, conferred after Lincoln's warning message came.

"If Lincoln's fleet tries to force the harbor," said Rhett, "we must fire upon it. Sumter should be ours, and if Lincoln succeeds in revictualling the fort it will be a great blow to our prestige. It will hurt the whole South. What do you think, General?"

"I think as you do, Mr. Rhett," replied Toutant Beauregard. "But have no fear, gentlemen. No fleet that Lincoln may send can reach Sumter. Our batteries are able to blow out of the water every vessel that flies the Northern flag."

"We must reduce Sumter itself before the fleet comes," said Jamison, of Barnwell.

Beauregard smiled slightly.

"We can do that, too," he said, "and I am glad to see that you gentlemen are for action. The fleet, I am accurately informed, consists of the warship Baltic, three sloops of war and two tenders. The Baltic, with Fox, the assistant secretary of the Northern Navy, on board, left New York two days ago. The other vessels started earlier, and we may expect the whole fleet in a day."

"Then," said Rhett, "we must send to Sumter another and a final demand for its surrender."

They were all agreed, and Beauregard chose his messengers, putting Harry among the number. Hoisting a white flag, they entered a large boat and were rowed by powerful oarsmen toward Sumter. Harry, looking back, saw the whole front of the harbor lined with people. Even at the distance it looked like a holiday crowd. He saw hundreds of women and girls in white and pink dresses, and there were roses of the same colors in hats and bonnets. Great parasols of every shade threw back the brilliant sunlight. It was still a holiday spectacle, a pageant, and many of the light hearts along the sea wall could not realize that it might yet be something far more.

Anderson, the commander of Sumter, appeared upon the esplanade to meet the boat coming with the white flag. Harry watched him closely. He saw a face worn, but set hard and firm, and a figure upright and steady. The Southerners tied their boat to the wall and climbed upon the esplanade.

"What do you want, gentlemen?" asked Anderson.

"We have come with our final demand for your surrender," replied the chief Southern officer. "If you do not yield we fire upon you."

Anderson shrugged his shoulders.

"I hear that a fleet from New York is coming to my relief."

"It will never be able to force a passage into the harbor."

"That may or may not be, but in any event, gentlemen, I tell you that the flag will not come down. If you fire, we fire back."

He spoke with no quiver in his voice, although his supply of ammunition was low, and the fort had a food supply for only four days.

"Then it is scarcely worth while for us to talk longer."

"No, it would be a waste of time by both of us." The Southerners turned back to their boat. Harry was the last and Anderson said to him in a low tone:

"I am sorry to see your father's son here."

"I am where he would wish me to be," replied the boy stiffly.

"Even so, I hope you will come to no harm," said Anderson in a generous tone.

After such a noble rejoinder Harry's heart softened instantly, and he returned the wish. Then he followed the others into the boat, and they pulled back to the mainland.

The crowd surmised from the quick return of the boat the nature of the answer that it brought. It seemed to feel one gigantic throb of passion, and perhaps of relief also, that the issue was made after so many weeks of waiting. Yet the holiday aspect disappeared, as if a cloud had passed suddenly before the sun.

Harry noted the shadow even before he landed. The people had become silent, and faces that had laughed turned grave. As they set foot upon the mainland, they told their news freely, and then the crowd dispersed almost in silence. It was the first time that Harry had seen Charleston, gay and light of heart, in the shadow, but he was sure that it could not last long. His errand over, he returned to his own battery and told Langdon and St. Clair of everything that had happened.

"It's all for the best," said Langdon cheerfully. "Sumter will be ours in another day."

"Wait and see, Happy," said Harry.

"All right, old Wait-and-See, I will," returned Langdon.

Harry tried to suppress, or at least conceal his intense excitement. The whole city was in the same state. The batteries were filled with men of wealth and position, serving as mere volunteer privates. The wives and daughters of many of them were at the Charleston Hotel or the Mills House, or at such inns as that kept by Madame Delaunay. Governor Pickens and his wife were at the Charleston Hotel, and with them were chief officers of the city and state. Nearly everybody knew that something was going to happen, but few knew when it would happen.

Harry noticed a tightening of discipline at their battery. The orders were sharp and they had to be obeyed. Nothing was wasted in politeness. Visitors were no longer allowed to gratify curiosity. Women and girls in their white or pink dresses were not permitted to come near and smile at their husbands or brothers or sweethearts in the trenches. The ammunition was stacked neatly behind the guns, and every man was compelled to be ready at an instant's notice.

"Looks like business," Langdon whispered joyfully to his comrades. "I'm hoping that fleet will come just as soon as it can."

"Happy, you sanguinary wretch," Harry whispered back, "I'm thinking the fleet will come soon enough for you and all the rest of us."

The afternoon faded. The sun sank in the hills behind them, and dusk came over city and harbor. But Harry, from the battery, could still see the black bulk of Sumter, and above it the gleaming red and blue of a flag.

Coffee and food were served to his comrades and himself in the battery, and then they remained by their guns waiting. The night deepened. Harry could yet see the flash of waters and the dim bulk of Sumter, but the flag itself was no longer visible. No sound came from the city. The silence there seemed singular and heavy.

The boy felt the night and the waiting. Even Happy Tom ceased to be light and frivolous. The three had nothing to do and they sat together, always looking toward the sea where the smoke of the relieving fleet might appear. Colonel Leonidas Talbot and Major Hector St. Hilaire passed together on a tour of inspection. They gave approving looks to the three trim youths, with the frank open faces, but said nothing and went on. Harry heard their footsteps for a moment or two, and then the oppressive silence came again.

The same stillness endured for a long time, so long that the three began to believe nothing would happen. Despite himself, Harry began to nod and he was forced to bring himself back to earth with a jerk. Then he stretched a little and peered over the earthwork. It was brighter now. A fine moon rode high, and the sea was dusted with starshine. The bulk of Sumter, black no longer, was coated with silver.

"Looks peaceful enough," whispered Langdon. "The ships have heard that you and St. Clair and I are here waiting for them and have turned back."

Harry made no answer. This waiting in the silence and the night made his blood quiver just a little. He was about to turn back when he saw a sudden flash of fire from another point further up. It was followed by a heavy crash that echoed and re-echoed over the still sea and city. Harry's heart leaped, but his body stiffened to attention. Tom and St. Clair by his side pressed against the earthwork.

"What is it?" they whispered.

"The moonlight is good," replied Harry, "but I don't see any ship. It must be a signal of some kind."

"Hush!" said Langdon, "there it goes again!"

Another cannon thundered, and the echoes, as before, came back from sea and shore, followed, as the echoes died, by that strange, heavy silence. But, straining their eyes to the utmost, the three boys could see nothing on the sea. It swayed gently like a vast mass of molten silver in the starshine, and lapped softly against the shore. The report of a third heavy gun came, and then the reports of several more. After that the silence was complete. It had seemed to Harry, his brain surcharged with excitement, like the tolling of great bells. Langdon and St. Clair whispered together, but he said nothing.

It was permitted to the three to lie down in their blankets in the earthwork and sleep, but they did not think of trying it. They wished to know the meaning of those cannon shots and they waited, tense with excitement. It was nearly midnight when Colonel Leonidas Talbot came.

"We have learned that the Northern vessels will appear before Charleston tomorrow," he said, "and the shots were a signal to all our people to be ready. The attack on Sumter will begin in the morning. Now you three boys must go to sleep. We shall need tomorrow soldiers who are fresh and strong, not those who are worn and weak from loss of sleep."

They tried it and found it easier now because they knew the mystery of the shots. Harry became conscious that the night was crisp and cold, and, wrapped in his blanket, he lay with his back against an inner wall of the earthwork. The blood, the result of his tension and excitement, pounded in his ears for some time, but, at last, his pulses became quiet, and his heavy eyes closed.

He was awakened at the first shoot of dawn by Colonel Leonidas Talbot.

"Up, boys!" he said, "snatch a bite of food and a drink of coffee, and make yourselves as neat as possible. General Beauregard is coming to this very battery."

His voice was quick and sharp, and the boys obeyed with the lightning speed of youth. It was a pale dawn. Gray clouds drifted along the sea's far rim, and a sharp wind came out of the Northwest. Heavy waves rolled into the mouths of the narrow and difficult passes that led into the bay.

"The Lord Himself fights for us," Harry heard Colonel Leonidas Talbot murmur. "No ships on such a sea would dare the passes in the face of our guns."

The pale light widened. Sumter was black and threatening again, and the flag waved there before it.

General Beauregard, his staff and a body of civilians arrived, and almost overflowed the battery. Harry noticed among the civilians an old man, seventy-five at least, with long hair, snow white. Despite his years, his face was as keen and eager as that of any boy.

"Who is he?" Harry whispered to St. Clair, who knew everybody.

"His name's Ruffin, but he's not a South Carolinian. He's a Virginian, but he has come to join us, and he's heart and soul with us. He's ready to fight at the drop of a hat."

Harry—their battery stood on Coming's Point—glanced toward the city and uttered a low cry of surprise.

"Look!" he said to his friends, "all Charleston is here."

"Yes, and a lot more of South Carolina, too," said St. Clair.

The people, learning the meaning of those signal guns in the night, were packed in every open space, and the very roofs were black with them. Forty or fifty thousand, men, women and children, were looking on, but nothing more than a murmur ran through the great mass. Harry knew that every heart in the fifty thousand beat, like his own, with strained expectancy.

A great gun in the battery was trained upon Sumter, and the gunner stood ready at the lanyard, but the old man with the long white hair and the keen, eager face, stepping forward, begged General Beauregard to allow him the honor of firing the first shot. The General consented at once, and the old man pulled the lanyard.

There was a terrific crash that almost deafened Harry, a gush of flame, followed by smoke, and a shell, screaming in a curve, dropped upon Sumter. For a few moments no one spoke, and Harry could hear the blood pounding in his ears. In a sudden flash of insight he saw a long and terrible road that they must tread. But neither he nor any other present realized to the full what had happened. The first real shot in the mightiest war of history had been fired, and the years of promises, kept or broken, of mutual jealousies and mutual abuse had ended at the cannon's mouth.

The silence was broken by a shout like the roar of a storm, that came from the people in the town. A puff of smoke rose from Sumter and the fort sent its answering shot, but it struck no enemy and again the shout came from the town, now a cry of derision.

Then all the batteries in the wide curve about Sumter leaped into fiery life. Cannon after cannon poured shot and shell against the black walls. The fort was ringed with fire. It seemed to Harry that the earth rocked. He tried to speak to his comrades, but he could not hear his own voice. He thought he was about to be deafened for his whole life, but Langdon handed him pieces of cotton which he quickly stuffed in his ears. Langdon and St. Clair had already taken the precaution. Happy Tom had proved himself the most forethoughtful of them all. And yet Langdon, careless and easy, was aflame with the fire of battle. It seemed to Harry that he thought little of consequences.

"Listen to it!" he shouted in excited tones to Harry and St. Clair. "Hark to the thudding of the great guns! It's war, the greatest of all games!"

Harry felt an intense excitement also. These were his people. He was of their bone and sinew, and he was with them, heart and soul. He did his part at the guns, and, although his excitement grew, he said nothing. He saw that the return fire from the fort was far inferior to that of the South Carolinians, and that it was doing no damage.

"Using their light guns only," he heard Colonel Talbot say during a momentary lull. "They must be short of ammunition."

The morning wore slowly on. From every battery along the mainland and on the islands, the storm of projectiles yet beat upon Sumter, and, at intervals, the fort replied, still using the light guns. Once Harry heard the whistle of a shell over his head, and he ducked automatically, while the others laughed. Another time, a solid shot sent the dirt flying in all their faces, stinging like driven sand, but that was the nearest any missile ever came to them.

Beauregard, after a while, gave an order for the firing to cease, and the city and harbor rose again, clear and distinct, in the pale sunlight. The great crowd of people was still there, all watching and waiting, The fort was battered and torn, but above it still hung the defiant flag, and there was no offer of surrender.

"Look! Look!" Langdon cried suddenly, reckless of all discipline, as he pointed a forefinger toward the sea.

Harry saw a column of smoke rising, and defining itself clearly against the pale blue sky.

"The Yankee fleet!" cried one of the officers, as he put his glasses to his eyes.

General Beauregard, General Ripley, and officers in every other battery, also were watching that new column of smoke through glasses. The dark spire in truth rose from the Baltic, the chief ship of the Union, having on board the energetic Fox himself, and two hundred soldiers. But chance and the elements seemed to have conspired against the secretary. One of his strongest ships had gone to the relief of another fort further south, others had been scattered by a storm, and the Baltic had only two sister vessels as she approached, over a rolling gray sea, the fiery volcano that was once the peaceful harbor of Charleston.

Harry saw the first column of smoke increase to three, and they knew then that the number of the Union vessels was far less than had been expected.

"Will they undertake to force the harbor and reach Sumter?" he asked of Colonel Talbot, who was then in the battery.

"If they do," replied the Colonel, "it will be a case of the most reckless folly. They would be sunk in short order, as they come right into the teeth of our guns. The sea itself, is against them. The waves are rolling worse than ever."

Colonel Talbot knew what he was saying. Vainly the men in Sumter looked for relief by sea. They, too, had seen the three ships off the harbor, and they knew whence they came and for what purpose. But they had reached the end of their journey, and had fallen short with the object of it in sight. They were compelled to swing back and forth, while they watched the circle of batteries pour a continuous fire upon the crumbling fort.

After the Southern officers had taken a long look at the Union ships, and had seen that they could do nothing, the fire on Sumter was renewed with increased volume. It lasted all through the day and the vast crowd of spectators did not diminish in numbers. Many of the wealthier were in carriages. If one went away for food or refreshment another took his place.

When the wind at times lifted the smoke, Harry saw that the wooden buildings standing on the esplanade of the fort were burning fiercely, set on fire by the bursting shells. The iron cisterns, too, although he did not know it until later, were smashed, and columns of smoke from the flaming buildings were pouring into the fort, threatening its defenders with destruction.

Night came on, and most of the people, lining the harbor, were compelled to go to their homes, but the fire of the Southern batteries continued, always converging upon the scarred and blackened walls of Sumter, from which came an occasional shot in return. Harry had now grown used to this incessant, rolling crash. He could hear his comrades speak, their voices coming in an under note, and now and then they discussed the result. They agreed that Sumter was bound to fall. The Union fleet could bring it no relief, and such a continuous rain of balls and shells must eventually pound it to pieces.

They ate and drank after dark. They had food in abundance and delicacies of many kinds from which to choose. Charleston poured forth its plenty for its heroes, and in those days of fresh young enthusiasm there was no lack of anything.

"The Yankees hold out well," said Langdon, "but I'm willing to bet a hundred to one that nobody sleeps in that fort tonight. You can't see the smoke of the ships any more. I suppose that for safety in the night they've had to go further out to sea. I'm glad I'm not on one of them, rolling and tumbling in those high waves. Well, everything is for the best, and if Sumter doesn't fall into our laps tonight she'll fall tomorrow, and if she doesn't fall tomorrow she'll fall the next day. What do you say to that, old Wait-and-See?"

"Wait and see," replied Harry so naturally that the others laughed.

The bombardment went on all through the night. Harry continually breathed smoke and the odor of burned gunpowder, which seemed to keep his nerves keyed to a great pitch, and to maintain the heat of his blood. Yet, after a while, he lay down, when his turn at the guns ceased, and slept through sheer exhaustion. His eyes closed to the thunder of cannon and they awoke at dawn to the same heavy thudding.

The fire had not ceased at any time in the course of the night, and Sumter looked like a ruin, but the flag still floated over it. St. Clair and Langdon were awakened a few minutes later, and they also stood up, rubbed their eyes, stared at the fort and listened to the firing. Harry laughed at their appearance.

"You fellows are certainly grimy," he said. "You look as if you hadn't seen water for a month."

"We can't see ourselves, old Wait-and-See," retorted Langdon, "but I guess we're beauties alongside of you. If I didn't have the honor of your acquaintance, I wouldn't know whether you came from the Indian Territory, Ashantee or the Cannibal Islands."

"And the music goes merrily on," said St. Clair. "I went to sleep with the cannon firing, and I wake up with them still at it. I suppose a fellow will get used to it after a while."

"You can get used to anything," said an officer who heard them. "Now, you boys eat your breakfasts. Your turn at the guns will come again soon."

They took breakfast willingly, although they found a strong flavor of smoke, sand, and burned gunpowder in everything they ate and drank. Then they went to their guns, but, when a few more shots were fired, a trumpet blew a signal, and it was echoed from battery to battery. Every cannon ceased, and, in the silence and under the lifting smoke, Harry saw a white flag going up on the fort.

Sumter was about to yield.



CHAPTER VII

THE HOMECOMING

A great and exultant cheer went up from the massed thousands in Charleston. A smile passed over Beauregard's swarthy face and he showed his white teeth. Colonel Leonidas Talbot regarded the white flag with feelings in which triumph and sadness were mingled strangely. But the emotions of Harry and his comrades were, for the moment, those of victory only.

Boats put out both from the fort and the shore. Discipline was relaxed now, and Harry, St. Clair and Langdon went outside the battery. A light breeze had sprung up, and it was very grateful to Harry, who for hours had breathed the heavy odors of smoke and burned gunpowder. The smoke itself, which had formed a vast cloud over harbor, forts and city, was now drifting out to sea, leaving all things etched sharply in the dazzling sunlight of a Southern spring day.

"Well, old Wait-and-See, you have waited, and you have seen," said Langdon to Harry. "That white flag and those boats going out mean that Sumter is ours. Everything is for the best and we win everywhere and all the time."

Harry was silent. He was watching the boats. But the negotiations were soon completed. Sumter, a mass of ruins, was given up, and the Star and Bars, taking the place of the Stars and Stripes, gaily snapped defiance to the whole North. "It begins to look well there," said Beauregard, gazing proudly at the new flag.

All the amenities were preserved between the captured garrison and their captors. Anderson was sent to the Baltic, which still hovered outside, and the Union vessels disappeared on their way back to the North. Peace, but now the peace of triumph, settled again over Charleston, and throughout the South went the joyous tidings that Sumter had been taken. The great state of Virginia, Mother of Presidents, went out of the Union at last, and North Carolina, Tennessee, and Arkansas followed her, but Maryland, Kentucky and Missouri still hung in the balance.

Lincoln had called for volunteers to put down a rebellion, but Harry heard everywhere in Charleston that the Confederacy was now secure. The Southerners were rising by the thousands to defend it. The women, too, were full of zeal and enthusiasm and they urged the men to go to the front. With the full consent of the lower South the capital was to be moved from Montgomery to Richmond, the capital of Virginia, on the very border of the Confederacy, to look defiantly, as it were, across at Washington over a space which was to become the vast battlefield of America, although few then dreamed it. The progress of President Davis to the new capital, set in the very face of the foe, was to be one huge triumph of faith and loyalty.

Harry heard nothing in Charleston but joyful news. There was not a single note of gloom. Europe, which must have its cotton, would favor the success of the South. Women who had never worked before, sewed night and day on clothing for the soldiers. Men gave freely and without asking to the new government. An extraordinary wave of emotion swept over the South, carrying everybody with it. Charleston shouted anew as the newspapers announced the news of distinguished officers who had gone out with the Southern States. There were the two Johnstons, the one of Virginia and the other of Kentucky; Lee, Bragg, of Buena Vista fame; Longstreet, and many others, some already celebrated in the Mexican War, and others with a greater fame yet to make.

Harry heard it all and it was transfused into his own blood. Now a letter came from his father. That obstinate faction in Kentucky still held the state to the Union. Since Sumter had fallen and Charleston was safe, he wished his son to rejoin him in Pendleton, whence they would proceed together to Frankfort, and help the Southern party. His personal account of the glowing deed that had been done in Charleston harbor would help. He was sure that his old friend, General Beauregard, would release him for this important duty.

Harry's heart and judgment alike responded to the call. He took the letter to General Beauregard, finding him at the Charleston Hotel with Governor Pickens and officers of his staff, and stood aside while the general read it. Beauregard at once wrote an order.

"This is your discharge from the Palmetto Guards," he said. "Colonel Kenton writes wisely. We need Kentucky and I understand that a very little more may bring the state to us. Go with your father. I understand that you have been a brave young soldier here and may you do as well up there."

Harry, feeling pride but not showing it, saluted and left the room, going at once to Madame Delaunay's, where he had left his baggage. He intended to leave early in the morning, but first he sought his friends and told them good-bye.

"Don't forget that we're going to have a great war," said Colonel Leonidas Talbot, "and the first battle line will be far north of Charleston. I shall look for you there."

"God bless you, my boy," said Major Hector St. Hilaire. "May you come back some day to this beautiful Charleston of ours, and find it more beautiful than ever."

"I'll meet you at Richmond later on," said Arthur St. Clair, "and then we'll serve together again."

"I'll join you at the White House in Washington," said Tom Langdon, "and I'll give you the next best bed to sleep in with your boots on."

Harry gave his farewells with deep and genuine regret. Whether their manner was grave or frivolous, he knew that these were good friends of his, and he sincerely hoped that he would meet them again. Madame Delaunay spoke to him almost as if he had been a son of hers, and there was dew in his eyes, because he could never forget her kindness to the lad who had been a stranger.

He resumed his civilian clothing and put his gray uniform, fine and new, of which he was so proud, in his saddle bags. Kentucky had declared herself neutral ground, warning the armies of both North and South to keep off her sacred soil, and he did not wish to invite undue attention. He intended, moreover, to leave the train when he neared Pendleton, at the same little station at which he had taken it when he started south.

It was a different Harry who started home late in April. Four months had made great changes. He bore himself more like a man. His manner was much more considered and grave. He had seen great things and he had done his share of them. He gazed upon a world full of responsibilities and perils.

But he looked back at Charleston the gay, the volatile and the beautiful, with real affection. It was almost buried now in flowers and foliage. Spring was at the full, every breeze was sharply sweet with grassy flavors. The very triumph and joy of living penetrated his soul. Youth swept aside the terrors of war. He was going home after victory. He soon left Charleston out of sight. A last roof or steeple glittered for a moment in the sun and then was gone. Before him lay the uplands and the ridges, and in another day he would be in another land.

He crossed the low mountains, passed through Nashville again, although he did not stop there, his train making immediate connection, and once more and with a thrill, entered his own state. He learned from casual talk on the trains that affairs in Kentucky were very hot. The special session of the Legislature, called by Governor Magoffin, was to meet at Frankfort early in May. The women of the state had already prepared an appeal to the Legislature to save them from the horrors of civil war.

Harry saw that he had not left active life behind him when he came away from Charleston. The feeling of strife had spread over a vast area. The atmosphere of Kentucky, like that of South Carolina, was surcharged with intensity and passion, but it had a difference. All the winds blew in the same direction in South Carolina and they sang one song of triumph, but in Kentucky they were variable and conflicting, and their voices were many.

He felt the difference as soon as he reached the hills of his native state. People were cooler here and they were more prone to look at the two sides of a question. The air, too, was unlike that of South Carolina. There was a sharper tang to it. It whipped his blood as it blew down from the slopes and crests.

It was afternoon when he reached the little station of Winton and left the train, a tall, sturdy boy, the superior of many a man in size, strength and agility. His saddle bags over his arm, he went at once to the liveryman with whom he had left his horse on his journey to Charleston, and asked for another, his best, for the return ride to Pendleton. The liveryman stared at him a moment or two and then burst into an exclamation of surprise.

"Why, it's Harry Kenton!" he said. "Harry, you've changed a lot in so short a time! You were at the bombardment of Fort Sumter, they tell me! It's made a mighty stir in these parts! There were never before such times in old Kentucky! Yes, Harry, I'll give you the best horse I've got, there ain't one more powerful in the state, but pushin' as hard as you will you can't reach Pendleton before dark, an' you look out."