anxious as their own oxen.

"'Bout half on 'em Secesh," whispered Jim Dyke. "'T depends on who
burned their barns fust."

Jim was recruiting to fill up some vacancies in Palmer's company. He had
been tolerably successful that day; as he said, with a wink, to the
Captain,--

"The twenty dollars a month on one side, an' the test-oath on t' other,
brought loyalty up to the scratch."

He presented some of the recruits to Palmer: pluming himself, adjusting
the bogus chains over his pink shirt.

"Hyur's Squire Pratt. Got two sons in th' army,--goin' hisself. That's
the talk! Charley Orr, show yerself! This boy's father was shot in his
bed by the Bushwhackers."

A mere boy, thin, consumptive, hollow-chested: a mother's-boy, Palmer
saw, with fair hair and dreamy eyes. He held out his hand to him.

"Charley will fight for something better than revenge. I see it in his
face."

The little fellow's eyes flashed.

"Yes, Captain."

He watched Palmer after that with the look one of the Cavaliers might