Captain Moseley endeavored to explain to Colonel Watson why his duty made it imperatively necessary to carry Spurlock back to the conscript camp, but in the midst of it all the old man cried out:— “Oh, I know who sent you!” “Who?” the captain said. “Nobody but Wesley Lovejoy!” Captain Moseley made no response, but gazed into the fire. Chadwick, on the other hand, when Lovejoy’s name was mentioned, slapped himself on the leg, and straightened himself up with the air of a man who has made an interesting discovery. “Come, now,” Colonel Watson insisted, “hain’t it so? Didn’t Wesley Lovejoy send you?” “Well,” said Moseley, “a man named Lovejoy is on Colonel Waring’s staff, and he gave me my orders.” At this the old man fairly shrieked with laughter, and so sinister was its emphasis that the two soldiers felt the cold chills creeping up their backs. “What is the matter with Lovejoy?” It was Chadwick who spoke. “Oh, wait!” cried Colonel Watson; “thes wait. You mayn’t want to wait, but you’ll have to. I may look like I’m mighty puny, an’ I ’spec’ I am, but I hain’t dead yit. Lord A’mighty, no! Not by a long shot!” There was a pause here, during which Aunt Crissy remarked, in a helpless sort of way:— “I wonder wher’ Polly is, an’ what she’s a-doin’?” “Don’t pester ’long of Polly,” snapped the paralytic. “She knows what she’s a-doin’.” “About this Wesley Lovejoy,” said Captain Moseley, turning to the old man: “you seem to know him very well.” “You hear that, William!” exclaimed Colonel Watson. “He asts me ef I know Wes. Lovejoy! Do I know him? Why, the triflin’ houn’! I’ve knowed him ev’ry sence he was big enough to rob a hen-roos’.” Uncle Billy Powers, in his genial way, tried to change the current of conversation, and he finally succeeded, but it was evident that Adjutant Lovejoy had one enemy, if not several, in that humble household. Such was the feeling for Spurlock and contempt for Wesley Lovejoy that Captain Moseley and Private Chadwick felt themselves to be interlopers, and they once more suggested the necessity of pursuing their journey. This suggestion seemed to amuse the paralytic, who laughed loudly. “Lord A’mighty!” he exclaimed, “I know how you feel, an’ I don’t blame you for feelin’ so; but don’t you go up the mountain this night. Thes stay right whar you is, beca’se ef you don’t you’ll make all your friends feel bad for you. Don’t ast me how, don’t ast me why. Thes you stay. Come an’ put me to bed, William, an’ don’t let these folks go out ’n the house this night.”