ed toward him.

"Boys, you have all heard the news brought by the last papers. Fort
Sumter has been fired on; President Lincoln has called for volunteers;
the Southern Confederacy has been declared and civil war has begun. It
is the intention of Dawson to offer his services to the cause of the
Union."

"And I shall enlist too," declared Wade Ruggles, compressing his lips,
"but it will be on the other side."

"I'm with you," added Budge Isham; "I am from Alabama, and if she
secedes, as she is sure to do, I am ready to lay down my life in her
defence."

"Sorry, pards, but that shoves me into the Union army," remarked Al
Bidwell, puffing quietly at his pipe; "we must keep the balance right,
but we'll part friends here and we'll be friends till we shoulder our
muskets. Then we'll do all we can to kill each other."

Further discussion disclosed that the citizens of New Constantinople
were about equally divided in their allegiance, but all of them were
not yet ready to take up arms in support of the cause with which they
sympathized. There were eight who announced their intention of making
their way to San Francisco, there to find the most available route to
the points necessary to reach. It was typical of that stupendous
struggle, the greatest of modern times, that four of these recruits
were ardent supporters of one cause and four equally eager to risk
their lives for the other. They were the warmest of friends and had
been for years, willing to face any danger for the sake of the
remainder. It would be the same until they parted, and then, as one of
them had already expressed it, they would devote every energy to
trying to kill one another.

None of the volunteers faltered until Maurice Dawson decided to leave
his daughter at the settlement until his return, if so be he should be
permitted to return. He knew of no better or safer place for her, nor
of any friends to whose care he would more cheerfully commit her, in
case it should be his lot to fall on the field of battle.

It had been Parson Brush's intention to be Dawson's comrade in his
perils, but when the father begged him to stay behind to look after
his child he consented. And so the programme, so fraught with
momentous consequences, was arranged.

CHAPTER X

THE BLUE AND THE GRAY

The four years of stupendous war came to an end. The sun of the
Southern Confederacy went down in gloom and defeat behind the hills of
Appomattox, never to rise agai