working, veteran of the Mexican war, always and in everything the soul of honor, profane, yet in a manner pious with a decided "leanin' t'wurd" the Presbyterian Church, then just organized in New Richmond, and he had all the sterling qualities of the sturdy Scots.

The letter read a second time, and its purport thoroughly digested, Amsden immediately took action. It was then almost sundown but, he reflected, the early February nights were long. However, time was precious. A messenger was sent to summons John R. Noss, a farmer living four miles from town on the Postville road. Noss was a young man of the highest integrity, of more than average ability, wellconnected, a fluent speaker, a stranger to fear, an open Abolitionist and original Lincoln man and, what Amsden liked, was always ready to act "at the drop of a hat." Several others also were summoned, among them Cornelius Blavey-slight, short of stature, always a perfect gentleman, brave as a lion, loyal to the core, destined to become “General Blavey," sometimes impetuous, a man after Amsden's own heart. Armentrout lived, moved and had his being in a room partitioned off in the rear of his shop; and it was there they were to meet.

Thus while Dr. Culpepper was confiding to Judge Gildersleeve and others the contents of the Davis letter, and the fact that it had been lost, and the young lawyer and Marjorie were enjoying themselves tête-à-tête, and Harold, surprised and discomfited by his fiancée's conduct, was being left to twiddle his fingers, Amsden Armentrout was laying before his fellow-Abolitionists the letter, bearing the New Richmond postmark, which had come to him, anonymously, through the mail.

"Who's Samuel Simonson," and "Wait for developments,' were the themes and watchwords of both meetings.

Dr. Culpepper and his friends were more than half per

suaded that "Samuel Simonson" was an alias, and that he was the threatened United States marshal; at the same time Armentrout, with far better grounds for his faith, had made up his mind that the aforesaid young man was the promised emissary of Jefferson Davis.

An eavesdropper, hearing only the words emphasized, could not have distinguished the one meeting from the other. "Mum," "we must not be precipitate," "wait till they show their hands," "traitor," "patriot," "officer," "persecution," "outrage," "spy," "incognito," "snap judgment," "stretch hemp," "provost-marshal," "dead men tell no tales," "no time to be squeamish"-verbally, phraseologically, and in spirit, the meetings were identical; but in all else they were as nadir and zenith, as capricorn and cancer, as the solstices of summer and winter.

Were thoughts telepathetically communicated Simonson would have been too distracted to have engaged in psychic joust with the Judge's daughter; and did ears burn when their owners are talked about his ears would have been incinerated, and there would have been no raptured tympanum to thrill at the dainty tappings of Marjorie's gracious words.

But the meeting at Judge Gildersleeve's was by far the more anxious. An implicating letter, from their view point both innocently written and received, had been lost-but how would the Abolitionists regard it in the not unlikely event of its falling into their hands? There could be but one answer-treason. Dr. Culpepper was a brave man, none braver ever lived, but his face was ashen and his voice was tremulous as, looking from face to face as if for sympathy, he said, "Already perhaps I and my family are being proclaimed outlaws, aiders and abettors of treason; tomorrow we may be haled to judgment and a felon's cell; after thatThe sentence remained unfinished.

"And yet I love my country," he presently resumed, “as I love my life. It is the land of my fathers. My kinsmen have fought in every war that has been waged for its preservation; and in every war some of my kinsmen have laid down their lives. In my sacred archives are three commissions, signed by Washington, Jackson, and Taylor, my great-grandfather, grandfather, and father being thus honored. Slavery? I hate it. You gentlemen know that ten years ago, back in Kentucky, I freed my slaves-without compensation. Yesterday I told Harold to take down the Stars and Stripes that Charlotte always keeps draped about the picture of the great Culpepper, my great-grandfather. I had been reading the speeches of Lincoln and Seward, and a vicious editorial by Horace Greeley, vilely aspersing and misrepresenting our people; and I felt that their flag could no longer be my flag. But when Harold said, holding it in his hand, 'What shall I do with it, father? Throw it in the fire?' my eyes were suddenly dim with tears; and I caught it up, lifted it to my lips, and kissed it again and again. Yes, and I'm not ashamed to confess it. And I said, 'No, Harold; fold it up gently and lay it away. reason and tolerance may return to my countrymen and once more we can proudly unfold it to receive the kisses of the wind, and the benediction of the skies. For it has a great and glorious history and I love it, love it, even as I love my life.' Nor do Lincoln and Seward and Greeley love this glorious Republic one whit more than I do and the Lees and Johnsons and Jackson and Alexander Stephens. But they cruelly lock the door of exit, wisely and magnanimously left open by our fathers, and now tauntingly declare we shall not depart. More: because we wish to avail ourselves of our inalienable Constitutional right, openly proclaimed by our fathers and never before denied or called in question, we are stigmatized as wreckers of the Consti

Some day

tution, and as traitors to our country. However, we will practice patience and pray to the God of our Fathers for deliverance. Quoth Horace, *Durum, sed quidquid est nefas corrigere fit levius patientia.'

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It is hard, but whatever is impossible to rectify becomes more supportable by patience.

CHAPTER V

THE DAVIS EMISSARY. VIRGINIA LEE CULPEPPER

IN the meantime Jefferson Davis' emissary had arrived,

incognito.

He had planned to assume the rôle of a bluff, opulent, convivial New Yorker, representing a mysterious railroad syndicate. The idea was exceedingly well conceived as the people of Raleigh County had long desired a railroad from St. Louis to New Richmond, and thence, by converging lines, to Louisville, and Evansville, or Cincinnati, the latter preferred. Hence a capitalist, or a representative of capitalists, would be certain of a hearty welcome, regardless of politics or party affiliations, and the most generous assistance in studying the topography and resources of the surrounding country. This rôle would also have accounted for his easy camaraderie with the Culpeppers, Gildersleeves, Goldbecks, and other Southern families, as they were the largest landowners and wealthiest people in that part of the state.

But at Enochsburg he had heard of the lost Davis letter and at once saw that this plan would not be feasible. To pose as a rich man, and openly be on intimate terms with Davis' cousin and her aristocratic coterie would now, under the changed conditions, arouse suspicion.

Happily for him, and the hazardous mission he was on, he was not only a gentleman of culture but, also, a resourceful actor. Born in New Orleans, boasting the blood of Raoul Innerarity and of Jules St. Ange, christened Fuentes

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