st as the two turned into the armory.

"Thanks for your opinion, Major Dodley," murmured Ridge; "that cheap
berth will be vacant sooner than you think."

Then, picking up his "grip," the young fellow walked rapidly away towards
the railway station. He was clad in a blue flannel shirt, brown canvas
coat, trousers, and leggings, and wore a brown felt hat, the combination
making up a costume almost identical with that decided upon as a Cuban
campaign uniform for the United States army. Ridge had provided himself
with it in order to save the carrying of useless luggage. In his "grip"
he had an extra shirt, two changes of under-flannels, several pairs of
socks, a pair of stout walking-shoes, and a few toilet articles, all of
which could easily be stowed in an army haversack.

Our hero's vaguely formed plan, as he neared the station, was to take the
first east-bound train and make his way to one of the great camps of
mobilization, either at Chickamauga, Georgia, or Tampa, Florida, where he
hoped to find some regiment in which he could conscientiously enlist. A
train from the North had just reached the station as he entered it; but,
to his disgust, he found that several hours must elapse before one would
be ready to bear him eastward.

He was too excited to wait patiently, but wandered restlessly up and down
the long platform. All at once there came to his ears the sound of a
familiar voice, and, turning, he saw, advancing towards him, in the full
glare of an electric light, three men, all young and evidently in high
spirits. One, thin, brown, and wiry, was dressed as a cowboy of the
Western plains. Another, who was a giant in stature, wore a golf suit of
gray tweed; while the third, of boyish aspect, whom Ridge recognized as
the son of a well-known New York millionaire, was clad in brown canvas
much after his own style, though he also wore a prodigious revolver and a
belt full of cartridges.

He was Roland Van Kyp, called "Rollo" for short, one of the most
persistent and luxurious of globe-trotters, who generally travelled in
his own magnificent steam-yacht _Royal Flush_, on board of which he had
entertained princes and the cream of foreign nobility without number.
Everybody knew Van Kyp, and everybody liked him; he was such a genial
soul, ever ready to bother himself over some other fellow's trouble, but
never intimating that he had any of his own; reckless, generous,
happy-go-lucky, always getting into scrapes an