toker
earning wages, but after some persuasion the steamer's captain agreed to
let him "work his passage" to Cairo. That is to say, he was to pay no
fare, receive no wages, and do double work in return for his passage
down the river and for the coarse and unsavory food necessary for the
maintenance of his strength.

"All this is a valuable part of my education," he reflected. "I am
learning the important lesson that in work as in warfare the man counts
for nothing--the service that can be got out of him is the only thing
considered by those in command. I must remember all that, if ever I am
in a position to make a bargain for the sale of my services."

It was in this spirit that the young ex-Captain entered upon his new
career in the army of those that work. He was beginning at the bottom in
the new service, just as he had done in the old. "I set out as a private
in the army," he said to himself. "It was only when I had learned enough
to fit me for the command of others that I was placed in authority. Very
well, I'm beginning as a private again. I must learn all that I can, for
I mean to command in that army, too, some day."

V

THE BEGINNING OF A CAREER

It was a little after sunset on Decoration Day--May 30, 1865--when young
Duncan went ashore from the tow boat at Cairo. The town was ablaze with
fireworks, as he made his way up the slope of the levee, through a
narrow passage way that ran between two mountainous piles of cotton
bales. At other points there were equally great piles of corn and oats
in sacks, pork in barrels, hams and bacon in boxes, and finer goods of
every kind in bales and packing cases. For Cairo was just at that time
the busiest _entrepot_ in all the Mississippi Valley.

The town was small, but its business was larger than that of many great
cities. The little city lay at the point where the Ohio River runs into
the Mississippi. From up and down the Mississippi, from the Ohio, from
the Tennessee and the Cumberland, and even from far up the Missouri,
great fleets of steamboats were landing at Cairo every day to load and
unload cargoes representing a wealth as great as that of the Indies. A
double-headed railroad from the North, carrying the produce of half a
dozen States, and connecting by other roads with all the great cities
of the land, made its terminus at Cairo. Two railroads from the
South--traversing five States--ended their lines at Columbus, a little
farther down the river, a