but I
feel that you have done me a great favour in thinking of me in
connection with this business. You couldn't pay either of us a higher
compliment."

"Tomlin expresses my views exactly," said Colonel Blasengame; "yet I
feel that one of us will be enough. It may be that your scheme will
fail, and that those who are engaged in it will have to take the
consequence. Now, I'd rather take 'em alone than to have Tumlin mixed up
with it."

"Fiddlesticks, Bolivar! you couldn't keep me out of it unless you had a
bench-warrant served on me five minutes before the train left, and if
you try that, I'll have one served on you. Now, don't forget to tell
Tidwell that I'll be glad to renew that dispute. I bear no malice, but
when it comes to a row, I don't need malice to keep my mind and my gun
in working order. I'm going down to Malvern to-morrow, and before I come
away, I'll have everything fixed. There are some details, you know, that
never occurred to you: the police, for instance. Well, the chief of
police is a very good friend of mine, and the major was Bolivar's
adjutant."

"Well, I thank the Lord for all his mercies!" cried Mr. Sanders; and he
meant what he said.

CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT

_Nan and Margaret_

It was hinted in some of the early chapters of this chronicle that none
of the characters would turn out to be very heroic, but this was a
mistake. The chronicler had forgotten a few episodes that grew out of
the expedition of Cephas to Fort Pulaski--episodes that should have
stood out clear in his memory from the first. Cephas was very meek and
humble when he started on his expedition, so much so that there were
long moments when he would have given a large fortune, if he had
possessed it, to be safe at home with his mother. A hundred times he
asked himself why he had been foolish enough to come away from home, and
trust himself to the cold mercy of the world; and he promised himself
faithfully that if he ever got back home alive, he would never leave
there again.

Captain Falconer was very kind and attentive to the lad, but he was also
very inquisitive. He asked Cephas a great many artful questions, all
leading up to the message he was to deliver to Gabriel; but the
instructions he had received from Mr. Sanders made Cephas more than a
match for the Captain. When the lad came to the years of maturity, he
often wondered how a plain and comparatively ignorant countryman could
foresee the questions that wer