"Of course!"

"Oh! I--I--" The attempt to express what this prospect meant to her
was beyond her girlish rapture, but her parted lips and shining eyes
told the story to Gale. "And Poleon must go, too. We can't go
anywhere without him." The old man smiled down upon her in
reassurance. "I wonder what he'll say when he finds the soldiers
have come. I wonder if he'll like it."

Gale turned his eyes down-stream to the barracks, and noted that the
long flag-staff had at last been erected. Even as he looked he saw a
bundle mounting towards its tip, and then beheld the Stars and
Stripes flutter out in the air, while the men below cheered noisily.
It was some time before he answered.

"Poleon Doret is like the rest of us men up here in the North. We
have taken care of ourselves so far, and I guess we're able to keep
it up without the help of a smooth-faced Yankee kid for guardian."

"Lieutenant Burrell isn't a Yankee," said Necia. "He is a blue-grass
man. He comes from Kentucky."

Her father grunted contemptuously. "I might have known it. Those
rebels are a cultus, lazy lot. A regular male man with any ginger in
him would shed his coat and go to work, instead of wearing his
clothes buttoned up all day. It don't take much 'savvy' to run a
handful of thirteen-dollar-a-month soldiers." Necia stirred a bit
restlessly, and the trader continued: "It ain't man's work, it's--
loafing. If he tries to boss us he'll get QUITE a surprise."