reets, and out of temptation. Judge, I'd
a heap rather go down and jump off the stern of my boat than step in here
and tell him I'd fight for the North."

The Judge steadied himself on his hickory stick and walked off without a
word. For a while Captain Lige stood staring after him. Then he slowly
climbed the steps and disappeared.

CHAPTER, XV

MUTTERINGS

Early in the next year, 1861,--that red year in the Calendar of our
history,--several gentlemen met secretly in the dingy counting-room of a
prominent citizen to consider how the state of Missouri might be saved to
the Union. One of these gentlemen was Judge Whipple, another, Mr.
Brinsmade; and another a masterly and fearless lawyer who afterward
became a general, and who shall be mentioned in these pages as the
Leader. By his dash and boldness and statesmanlike grasp of a black
situation St. Louis was snatched from the very bosom of secession.

Alas, that chronicles may not stretch so as to embrace all great men of a
time. There is Captain Nathaniel Lyon,--name with the fateful ring.
Nathaniel Lyon, with the wild red hair and blue eye, born and bred a
soldier, ordered to St. Louis, and become subordinate to a wavering
officer of ordnance. Lyon was one who brooked no trifling. He had the
face of a man who knows his mind and intention; the quick speech and
action which go with this. Red tape made by the reel to bind him, he
broke. Courts-martial had no terrors for him. He proved the ablest of
lieutenants to the strong civilian who was the Leader. Both were the men
of the occasion. If God had willed that the South should win, there would
have been no occasion.

Even as Judge Whipple had said, the time was come for all men to decide.
Out of the way, all hopes of compromises that benumbed Washington. No
Constitutional Unionists, no Douglas Democrats, no Republicans now.

All must work to save the ship. The speech-making was not done with yet.
Partisanship must be overcome, and patriotism instilled in its place. One
day Stephen Brice saw the Leader go into Judge Whipple's room, and
presently he was sent for. After that he was heard of in various
out-of-the-way neighborhoods, exhorting all men to forget their quarrels
and uphold the flag.

The Leader himself knew not night from day in his toil,--in organizing,
conciliating, compelling when necessary. Letters passed between him and
Springfield. And, after that solemn inauguration, between him and
Washington.