riot and live through
battle after battle, leading his men intrepidly--men who loved the very
ground on which he trod. Into the thickest places where old veterans
could not have stood the gaff, he went with calm indifference. Victory
followed victory--complete, hilarious victories! Dead Germans,
prisoners, and cannon which Jeb flung into the game bag of his waking
dreams, if put side by side, would have reached around the world.

'Tis true, that this top-lofty state of mind suffered a complete relapse
when Bernstorff got his papers, and for the first time Jeb seriously
felt the cold fingers of fear reach out and touch him. It had been a
peculiar change, that for awhile startled him more than the imminence of
war. He might have been thrilled over the wild race, the reckless dash,
as of unbridled horses, with which a nation long in suspense hurtled
toward a finality; but it was an elation thoroughly dampened by dread.
As the days had passed, however, and nothing more terrible happened, his
courage came creeping back, even growing into modest bravado. Excursions
to the country with his rifle became frequent again. He began to feel
himself stiffen-up when Miss Sallie would tell a neighbor how he was
getting ready for the possible war; this neighbor told other neighbors,
and he was soon basking in admiring looks which were as meat and drink
to him. It was on this crest of popularity that Marian found him when
she returned to Hillsdale.

With a face utterly devoid of expression she watched him now while he
held back the gate with one hand while trying to stuff the bulkily
folded targets into his pocket.

"Maybe you'd rather carry them, Marian," he said, "and we can look at
them again on the way downtown!"

She did not answer.

"I always take them down to your father, you know," he said again.

"I should think daddy would be immensely flattered," she observed,
passing out to the street.

Scarcely had the gate closed after them when Miss Sallie and Miss
Veemie, guilt written in every line of their radiant faces, tiptoed from
the house, stepped into the garden and ran to the fence. As they had
formerly done while watching Colonel Hampton stalk angrily townward,
they now, also, leaned farther and farther over the pickets, keeping the
young people who comprised their hope in view to the very last.

CHAPTER II

Colonel Hampton, after leaving the Tumpson sisters in a fog of
astonishment, did not pause at the hote