n't got here yet?"

"No. It's going to sail on Monday. We know all about it in spite of the
efforts the Yankees have made to keep it secret."

"If the ships haven't even sailed yet, why do you raise such a row over
a Confederate victory that is not won?" asked Jack.

"Oh, it's going to be won," said Allison confidently. "Everybody says
so, and we thought we would begin to holler in time. What we are afraid
of is, that old Hatteras will turn in and fight the battle for us by
kicking up such a sea that the Yankee ships won't dare come near the
Inlet. That would be bad for us, for of course if they keep beyond the
range of our guns we can't sink them. Oh, they're bound to get a
whipping if we can only get a chance to give it to them."

Although the Confederates boasted loudly of the strong fortifications
which (so they said) had been thrown up everywhere along their coast,
and even went so far as to warn the Federal government that the most
powerful expedition that could be fitted out against these
fortifications would be sure to meet with disaster, Marcy Gray was well
aware that the coast was almost defenseless, because one of his papers,
the Augusta _Chronicle and Sentinel_ was brave enough to tell the truth
now and then. Only a few days before, this paper had called upon the
government to provide for coast defense by "organizing and drilling
infantry and guerrillas at home," so that there would be no need to call
upon the Confederate President for troops. The same paper also stated
that the Union naval officers knew the bays and inlets along the coast
like a book from surveys in their possession, and if so disposed, there
were many places where they might raid and do damage before they could
be driven off. But events proved that the Union forces did not go down
to the coast of the Carolinas just to give the Confederates the fun of
driving them off. When once they got a foothold there they kept it, in
spite of all the efforts that were made to dislodge them.

Having secured their horses and listened to all that young Allison had
to tell them concerning the glorious victory that had not yet been won,
the brothers bent their steps toward the post-office, where they found a
crowd of men and boys who seemed to be trying to make themselves
ridiculous. They acted in the same senseless way that those travelling
companions did whom Marcy Gray found on the train when he left
Barrington, and could not have been more excited an