s
friend for the last time in Mount Pleasant, that his mind was fully made
up and that he had decided for all time in favor of the cause, at the
sacrifice of himself.

"I shall do what I can," Arnold whispered, "but no more."

He parted from them at the threshold.

CHAPTER VI

I

"I have always contended, Griff, that a bigot and a patriot are
incompatible," remarked Stephen as he sat on the side of his bed, and
looked across the room and out into the sunlit street beyond.

"Is that something you have just discovered?" answered Sergeant Griffin
without taking his eyes from the newspaper before him. He was seated by
the window, musing the morning news, his curved pipe hanging idle from
his mouth, from which incipient clouds of smoke lazily issued and as
lazily climbed upward and vanished through the open casement into
threads of nothingness.

"No," was the reply, "but I have come to the conclusion that the
philosophy of religious prejudice cannot be harmonized with true
patriotism. They stand against each other as night and day. The one
necessarily excludes the other."

"Do you know, Captain," the sergeant reasoned, pointing towards Stephen
with the stem of his pipe, "a hard shell and a fool are somewhat alike;
one won't reason; the other can't."

"I guess you're right," Stephen laughed. "But love of country and love
of one's neighbor should be synonymous. This I have found by actual
experience to be almost a truism."

He was idling about the room gathering wearing apparel from the closets
and drawers, pausing for a moment to feel a pile of wet clothing that
lay across the back of a straight chair.

"You must have fallen overboard last night," observed the sergeant.

"I didn't fall, Griff; I jumped."

"And let me tell you, Griff," Stephen continued, "Arnold has become one
of the most dangerous men in the whole American Army."

He was dressing quietly.

"And you discovered that, too?"

"I am certain of it, now."

"That is more like it. I don't suppose you ever had any doubts about it.
Now you have the facts, eh?"

"I have some of them; not all. But I have enough to court-martial him."

"And you got them last night?"

"I did."

"And got wet, too?"

"I almost got killed," was the grave response.

"How?"

"Anderson shot at me."

"Was he with you, also?"

"No. After me."

"Come, let us hear it. Where were you?"

"At Mount Pleasant."

"With Arnold and Anderson?"

"Yes. But the