is a fair question, and where are
you going?"

Rodney explained in a few hasty words, and was sorry to hear the captain
declare, as he shook his finger at him:

"You are making a great mistake. The place for a young man with a
military education is in the regular army; not the volunteers,
understand, but the regulars, who will be continued in the service after
our independence has been acknowledged. I am surprised that your friends
didn't point that out to you."

"I have gone too far along this road to back out now," replied Rodney.
"We'll get by Cairo all right, won't we?"

"I think so. There have been no restrictions placed upon travel yet that
I have heard of."

"How about Cape Girardeau?"

"That place is garrisoned. You mustn't think of getting off there. How
would you get through the lines without a pass?"

"Well, I must get off somewhere along the Missouri shore, for it
wouldn't be safe for me to go on to St. Louis."

"Of course it wouldn't. That Union cotton-factor would have you arrested
the minute you put your foot on the levee. I'll tell you what I'll do,"
said the captain, after thinking a moment. "The first clerk, with whom I
have a slight acquaintance, is solid, and I'll make it my business to
ask him if we are going to land anywhere on the Missouri side between
Cape Girardeau and St. Louis. If we are, I'll tip you the wink, and you
can be ready to go ashore."

"Thank you, sir," said Rodney, gratefully.

"That young chap has no idea what he is going into," said the captain,
after he had told Rodney's story to some of his friends on the boiler
deck. "It's neighbor against neighbor all through the southern and
western parts of Missouri, and for a week or two past there has been the
worst kind of a partisan warfare going on. How he is going to get
through I don't know, for if he meets an armed man on the way how is he
going to tell whether he is Union or Confederate?"

There was but one opinion expressed when the captain finished his story,
and that was that Rodney Gray was a foolhardy young fellow.

CHAPTER VI.

UNDER SUSPICION.

From that time forward Rodney Gray had no reason to complain of being
lonely. Captain Howard--that was the name of his new acquaintance--
introduced him to more than a dozen gentleman, all of whom were
enthusiastic rebels and firm in their belief that if the South did
not have a "walk over" she would hav