unning
for his life!

"If that is true we are in a pretty fix," said Rodney, as soon as he
could speak. "I came up here to keep out of the Confederate army, and
now I am made a Confederate in spite of myself. And so are you. You are
under control of the government at Richmond now, and next week you may
be ordered to Virginia."

"But I'll not go," exclaimed Dick. "I'll serve right where I am until my
time is out, and then I'll go home. But look here. The Richmond
government can't order me out of Missouri without violating the very
principle we are fighting for--State Rights. They can _ask_ me to go,
but just see how utterly inconsistent they will be if they try to compel
me to go."

"I hope you are right, but I wouldn't be afraid to bet anything I've got
that you are wrong," answered Rodney; and his friend's words did not in
the least encourage him. "That would be the right way to do things, but
you ought to see that it wouldn't be sensible. What's the use of having
Confederate soldiers if they are not to obey the orders of the
Confederate government? If it suits them to do it, those fellows in
Richmond will ride rough-shod over State Rights."

"Oh, they won't do that," exclaimed Dick, waving his hands up and down
in the air. "They can't do it. Their government will fall to pieces like
a rope of sand if they try it."

The boys wondered what their general would think of the situation, and
when the artillery came into town they found out. A few sections of it
wheeled into line at a gallop, and celebrated the secession of the State
by firing one hundred guns. Rodney and Dick were intensely disgusted.
They listened in a half mutinous way when the adjutant read the act the
next day on dress parade, and tossed up their caps and shouted with the
rest; but they did these things for the same reasons that impelled
hundreds of others in camp to do them--because they knew it would not be
safe to show any lack of enthusiasm.

The fact that they were no longer State troops but full-fledged
Confederates was not fully impressed upon Rodney and his fellow soldiers
until some months later, when the Richmond government was all ready to
put its despotic plans into execution. Probably the general commanding
saw that there was much dissatisfaction among his men, and did not think
it prudent to draw the reins too tight. He drilled his troops a little
oftener and a little harder, and was rather more particular about
granting furloughs,