iform coat creased awkwardly. "I guess I'm about as fit to
command a regiment as Grant is."

"That man's forty years old, if he's a day," put in another. "I remember
when he came here to St. Louis in '54, played out. He'd resigned from the
army on the Pacific Coast. He put up a log cabin down on the Gravois
Road, and there he lived in the hardest luck of any man I ever saw until
last year. You remember him, Joe."

"Yep," said Joe. "I spotted him by the El Sol cigar. He used to bring a
load of wood to the city once in a while, and then he'd go over to the
Planters' House, or somewhere else, and smoke one of these long fellows,
and sit against the wall as silent as a wooden Indian. After that he came
up to the city without his family and went into real estate one winter.
But he didn't make it go. Curious, it is just a year ago this month than
he went over to Illinois. He's an honest fellow, and hard working enough,
but he don't know how. He's just a dead failure."

"Command a regiment!" laughed the first, again, as of this in particular
had struck his sense of humor. "I guess he won't get a regiment in a
hurry, There's lots of those military carpet-baggers hanging around for
good jobs now."

"He might fool you fellows yet," said the one caller, though his tone was
not one of conviction. "I understand he had a first-rate record an the
Mexican War."

Just then an aide rode up, and the Colonel gave a sharp command which put
an end to this desultory talk. As the First Regiment took up the march,
the words "Camp Jackson" ran from mouth to mouth on the sidewalks.
Catching fire, Stephen ran with the crowd, and leaping on passing street
car, was borne cityward with the drums of the coming hosts beating in his
ears.

In the city, shutters were going up on the stores. The streets were
filled with, restless citizens seeking news, and drays were halted here
and there on the corners, the white eyes and frenzied calls of the negro
drivers betraying their excitement. While Stephen related to his mother
the events of the morning, Hester burned the dinner. It lay; still
untouched, on the table when the throbbing of drums sent them to the
front steps. Sigel's regiment had swung into the street, drawing in its
wake a seething crowd.

Three persons came out of the big house next door. One was Anna
Brinsmade; and there was her father, his white hairs uncovered. The third
was Jack. His sister was cringing to him appealingly, and he str