rings me to what I want to tell you," said the operator. "I
didn't pay very much attention to that dispatch, although Drummond said
that if you tried to go up the river you ought to be chucked into the
calaboose, the last one of you; but when Randolph came in again that
evening and sent off another dispatch that was all about _you_, I began
to open my ears and think it was time I was giving you a hint."

"What could he have to say about me? It wasn't I who defeated him for
second lieutenant."

"No, but you voted against him, and the company gave you the position
you wanted without making any fuss about it, and presented you with a
splendid sword, and all those things made Randolph pretty middling mad,
I can tell you."

"Did he tell the Governor in his second dispatch that I was getting
ready to leave the State, and that he had better be on the lookout to
stop me?"

"Eh? No. He didn't send the second dispatch to the Governor. He sent it
to his father's cotton-factor in St. Louis, who is a Yank so blue that
the blue will rub off."

"The--mischief--he--did!" exclaimed Rodney, who began to feel blue
himself even if he didn't look so. "And what did he have to say to that
Yankee about me?"

"He told him to watch the steamboats for a Confederate bearer of
dispatches--a young fellow, dark complexioned, slight mustache, dressed
in citizen's clothes and a roan colt for company."

"It is his intention to have me arrested the minute I get into St.
Louis, is it?" cried Rodney, getting upon his feet and moving about the
room with long, angry strides.

"It looked that way to me, and that's why I am here," replied Griffin.

"I appreciate your friendship, and assure you that I shall always bear
it in mind," said Rodney, stopping long enough to give the operator's
hand a cordial gripe and shake.

"That's all right," said the latter. "I haven't forgotten the winter
when I was down with the chills and couldn't work, and that mortgage of
ours liked to have worried my mother into a sick bed--"

"That's all right too," Rodney interposed. "I was at school and had
nothing whatever to do with it."

"No, but your father had something to do with it, and it's all in the
family. I know it is Randolph's intention to get you into trouble with
the Yankees if he can, for I heard him tell Drummond so. And he couldn't
have taken a better way or a better time to do it," continued Griffin.
"If all reports are true, things are in a bad way in