Since the close of the war many high schools in the larger cities, and many other educational institutions, have taught military drill and evolutions in their regular courses; and the students have been organized as companies, battalions, and regiments, and are thus trained in actual practice as officers, from a corporal to a colonel, and as privates, for service in the field if we should again unfortunately be involved in a war with a foreign or domestic enemy. The important battle of Mill Springs, or Logan's Cross Roads as it is indifferently called in the official reports of the government, is introduced in the story, though not in its minute details. The Riverlawn Cavalry are present, and take part in the action, and the command of the principal character renders important service on the outskirts of the battle-field; and the squadron, either as a whole or in detachments, was busily employed. The State was overrun by lawless hordes of ruffians, of which Shaler, the latest historian of the State, writes as follows:-- "Deserters from both armies formed bands of outlaws called guerillas. These wretches, without commanders from either army, sheltered in the great forests that abound in nearly all parts of the State, were often strong enough to overcome the domestic forces, and were guilty of many outrages. They brought back to Kentucky the evils of its struggle with the Indians. Men again tilled their fields with their muskets by their sides, and slept in expectation of combat. During this and the following year these parties were hunted down, and, when captured, hanged without mercy. Still their numbers, their daring, and their swift movements, made the struggle as difficult and as bloody as in any year during the last century." The Riverlawn Cavalry was largely employed in operations against these irregular bodies of marauders; and there were so many of them that the force was kept constantly occupied. The cavalry had plenty of exciting experience; and the hero, in command of his platoon on detached service, proved himself to be not only a brave officer, but a skilful strategist. Compared with the States farther north, Kentucky had a terrible experience in the earlier years of the war, in her desperate struggle with Confederate and domestic enemies; and she is certainly entitled as a Union State to greater honor and respect for her loyalty and fidelity to the Union, and for sending so large a number of troops as she did "to the front," than any other loyal State. WILLIAM T. ADAMS. CONTENTS PAGE CHAPTER I. GRACE MORGAN AND HER TREASURE-CHEST 15 CHAPTER II. PREPARATIONS FOR DECISIVE ACTION 28 CHAPTER III. THE LIEUTENANT BAGS HIS GAME 41