"So'll the devil be a good boy! Just wait till that war comes! They'll see!" he growled, as the "century plant" disappeared. There floated back on the air, "Joy to the world, te, te, turn, turn. Yea, yea, there, Selim! Whoa! Yea! yea! Let earth receive her King! Te, te, turn." The "century plant" and Selim disappeared around the corner, and the fife and drum corps which had startled the horse, drowned all other sounds, and for Howard, all other thoughts. He did not stop to reach the gate. He vaulted over the fence and joined the procession and the refrain of the school-boys who gave words to the music--"on a rail! And we'll ride old Abe, and we'll ride old Abe, and we'll ride him to the White House on a rail!" The boy dropped into the step and the rhythm with a will. He forgot to be sullen. CHAPTER XII. _"The shears of destiny."_--Shakespeare. War! war! war! The great election was over. The bitterness of faction and of section had only intensified. The inevitable had at last come. Mobs, riots, and confusion followed threats, and at last the shot that struck Fort Sumter echoed in every village and hamlet in the country. The beginning of the struggle with arms to adjust the differences between two irreconcilable doctrines--two antagonistic social and economic policies--had culminated. The adjustment must, indeed, now come. "Seventy-five thousand troops for three months!" The President's call rang out, and almost before the echo died away the quota was full. The young, the adventurous, and the hot-headed, supplemented the patriotic and sprang into line. To these it was to be a three months' camping-out lark. Of course the South would back down at the show of armed strength and firm resistance to disunion. The martial spirit, the fighting instinct inherent in the race--that legacy from our brute ancestry--was fanned into flame like fire in a summer wind. College classes were depleted. Young lads hastened to force themselves into the ranks. Drum and fife and bugle sounded in every street. LeRoy Davenport was one of the first to enlist. The company of college boys elected him their second lieutenant, and they left at once for Camp Morton to be ready to march to the front at the first order for troops from the west. He looked very fine and soldierly and handsome in his uniform, and with the straps upon his shoulders. Beverly wrote that he should stick to his editorial chair. He slept in the office, to be ready to receive and write up every scrap of news the moment it came. He wrote a series of fiery editorials, denouncing the "outrage on the flag at Fort Sumter." An anonymous letter was pushed under his office-door warning him to desist. He published the letter and appended to it a more vigorous article than before. That night, as he lay on the bed in the little back room of the office, he thought he detected a strange odor. He went softly to the window and looked out. The moon was just rising on the river.