llikin, 'I've a good notion to help you. There's
only one government in the world that can get you out of this
difficulty; and that's the Confederate States of America, the
grandest nation that ever existed.'

"Just as you said to me I says to Doc; 'Why, the Confederacy ain't a
nation. It's been absolved forty years ago.'

"'That's a campaign lie,' says Doc. 'She's running along as solid as
the Roman Empire. She's the only hope you've got. Now, you, being a
Yank, have got to go through with some preliminary obsequies before
you can get official aid. You've got to take the oath of allegiance
to the Confederate Government. Then I'll guarantee she does all she
can for you. What do you say, Yank?--it's your last chance.'

"'If you're fooling with me, Doc,' I answers, 'you're no better
than the United States. But as you say it's the last chance, hurry
up and swear me. I always did like corn whisky and 'possum anyhow.
I believe I'm half Southerner by nature. I'm willing to try the
Klu-klux in place of the khaki. Get brisk.'

"Doc Millikin thinks awhile, and then he offers me this oath of
allegiance to take without any kind of a chaser:

"'I, Barnard O'Keefe, Yank, being of sound body but a Republican
mind, hereby swear to transfer my fealty, respect, and allegiance
to the Confederate States of America, and the government thereof
in consideration of said government, through its official acts
and powers, obtaining my freedom and release from confinement and
sentence of death brought about by the exuberance of my Irish
proclivities and my general pizenness as a Yank.'

"I repeated these words after Doc, but they seemed to me a kind of
hocus-pocus; and I don't believe any life-insurance company in the
world would have issued me a policy on the strength of 'em.

"Doc went away saying he would communicate with his government
immediately.

"Say--you can imagine how I felt--me to be shot in two weeks and my
only hope for help being in a government that's been dead so long
that it isn't even remembered except on Decoration Day and when Joe
Wheeler signs the voucher for his pay-check. But it was all there
was in sight; and somehow I thought Doc Millikin had something up
his old alpaca sleeve that wasn't all foolishness.

"Around to the jail comes old Doc again in about a week. I was
flea-bitten, a mite sarcastic, and fundamentally hungry.

"'Any Confederate ironclads in the offing?' I asks. 'Do you notice
any sounds resemb