udgeon in the carriage. He's going to try to
muster us in but I doubt if he knows enough. I am glad to see him,
however, for when he gets through with us, we shall know right where we
stand."

CHAPTER IV.

A SCHEME THAT DIDN'T WORK.

"Say," exclaimed Rodney Gray excitedly, as Captain Hubbard took his
place on the right of the company and the orderly galloped off to his
tent. "Who is that old party in the Governor's carriage?"

"You can't prove it by me," answered the captain. "I never saw him
before, but I know he's a mighty cross-grained old chap."

"May I leave the ranks a minute?" continued Rodney.

"Of course not. What would the Governor think?"

"I don't care a picayune what he thinks," replied Rodney, his excitement
increasing as the Governor's carriage began to circle around toward the
front and center of the company. "If that man in the fatigue cap and
duster isn't General Lacey, all the descriptions I have heard of him are
very much at fault."

"And do you really believe," began the captain, who was profoundly
astonished.

"I don't believe, I know that he means to muster us into the Confederate
service," interrupted Rodney. "Hold on a minute before you do a thing or
let a man answer to his name. My father knows him by sight."

Without again asking permission to leave his place, Rodney put his horse
in motion and rode over to the tree under whose friendly shade Mr. Gray
was sitting while he watched the drill.

"Father," said he, speaking rapidly and panting as if he had been
running instead of riding, "who is that in the carriage with the
Governor? Is it General Lacey?"

Mr. Gray nodded and looked up at his son as if to ask him what he was
going to do about it.

"Well, he has come here to muster us in, and the orderly has gone after
the roll-book," continued Rodney. "The general is a Confederate officer,
and if we let him muster us in, he will make Confederate soldiers of us,
won't he?"

"That's the way it looks from where I sit," answered Mr. Gray.

"It's the way it looks from where I sit too, and I just won't have any
such trick played upon me," said Rodney, hotly. "I know what I want and
what I want to do; and as long as I am a free man, nobody shall make me
do anything else."

"Are you going to back out?"

"I am. I'll not answer to my name when it is called. I'll go back and
put the other fellows on their guard, and then I'll fal