, taking the
garrison in rear, compel a general surrender. This accomplished, small
parties will be dispatched to cut the telegraph-wires and seize the
railway-stations; while the main body, reinforced by the eight thousand
and more prisoners, will march into the city and rendezvous in
Court-House Square, which will be the base of further operations.

The first blow struck, the insurgents, will be joined by the five
thousand Illini, (American Knights,) and, seizing the arms of the
city,--six brass field-pieces and eight hundred Springfield
muskets,--and the arms and ammunition stored in private warehouses,
will begin the work of destruction. The banks will be robbed, the stores
gutted, the houses of loyal men plundered, and the railway-stations,
grain-elevators, and other public buildings burned to the ground. To
facilitate this latter design, the water-plugs have been marked, and a
force detailed to set the water running. In brief, the war will be
brought home to the North; Chicago will be dealt with like a city taken
by assault, given over to the torch, the sword, and the brutal lust of a
drunken soldiery. On it will be wreaked all the havoc, the agony, and
the desolation which three years of war have heaped upon the South; and
its upgoing flames will be the torch that shall light a score of other
cities to the same destruction!

It was a diabolical plan, conceived far down in hell amid the thick
blackness, and brought up by the arch-fiend himself, who sat there,
toying with the hideous thing, and with his cloven foot beating a merry
tune on the death's-head and cross-bones under the table.

As he concludes, Hines turns to the new comer,--

"Well, my boy, what do you say? Will you take the post of honor and of
danger?"

The Texan draws a long breath, and then, through his barred teeth,
blurts out,--

"I will!"

On those two words hang thousands of lives, millions of money!

"You are a trump!" shouts Grenfell, springing to his feet "Give us your
hand upon it!"

A general hand-shaking follows, and during it, Hines and another man
announce that their time is up:--

"It is nearly twelve. Fielding and I never stay in this d----d town
after midnight. You are fools, or you wouldn't."

Suddenly, as these words are uttered, a slouched hat, listening at the
keyhole, pops up, moves softly through the hall, and steals down the
stairway. Half an hour later the Texan opens the private door of the
Richmond House, look