em could be discovered, perhaps because they were
so skilfully concealed, but more probably because those who searched were
not anxious to find.

Captain Edney accordingly paid the man for the loss of the single turkey,
which he ordered sent immediately to the hospital. He also told the
secessionist that he would pay him for all the poultry he was ready to
swear had been appropriated by the men of his company, provided he would
first take the oath of allegiance to the United States. This Buckley
sullenly refused to do, and he was immediately conducted by a guard
outside the lines. Seth Tucket followed at a short distance, saying, as
he put his hand in his pocket, as if to produce some money, "Say, friend!
better le' me pay ye for that gobble I stole. Any thing in reason, ye
know."

But Buckley gave him only a glance of compressed rage, and marched off in
silence, with disappointment and revenge in his heart.

XIII.

THE EXPEDITION MOVES.

Frank won the greatest credit from his comrades by the manner in which
he had gone through the investigation. And the fowls, which those who
searched could not discover, found their way somehow to the cooks, and
back again to the boys, and were shared among their companions, who had
a feast and a good time generally.

But when all was over, and the excitement which carried Frank through
had subsided, and it was night, and he lay in the darkness and solitude
of the tent, with his comrades asleep around him,--then came sober
reflection; and he thought of the poor man who had lost his turkeys, and
who, for one, had got no fun out of the business; and he remembered that
he had, to all intents and purposes, lied to Captain Edney; and he knew
in his heart that he had done a dishonest thing.

Yes, he had actually been engaged in stealing turkeys. He was guilty
of an act of which, a few weeks before, he would have deemed himself
absolutely incapable. All the mitigating circumstances of the case, which
had lately stood out so clear and strong as almost to hide the offence
from his moral vision, now faded, and shrunk away, and the wrong itself
stood forth, alone, in its undisguised ugliness.

"What is it to me that the man is a secessionist? That doesn't give us
the right to rob him. He is not in arms against the government; and we
don't know that he assists the rebels in any way, either by giving them
information or money.