"Certainly; what else can I do at a time like this?" replied the father. "And that is not all, my son; you and Artemas are now sixteen years old, nearly seventeen. You are both stout boys; and not only the sire, but the sons, must shoulder the musket and march to the battle-field." "I am ready for one!" exclaimed Deck with enthusiasm. "I am ready for the other!" added Artie quite as earnestly. "For some time I have seen that this was what we must come to; but I have put off saying anything about it, for it is a solemn and even an awful thing to engage in the strife of civil war, brother against brother, the son against his father, and the father against his son." "In our own family, we shall all be on the same side," added Deck. "But your uncle and his two sons will be with the enemies of the Union. It is not of our choosing, and God will be with us while we do our duty to our country," said the patriot father, as he solemnly lifted his eyes upward. "Now, my sons, for you both call me father, and I have always tried to be the same to both of you"-- "And you always have been! And Aunt Ruth has been a mother to me and my sister Dorcas!" interposed Artie, as he wiped the tears from his eyes. "I shall never again call either of you anything but father or mother. I am ready to enlist whenever you say the word, father." "You are honest and true, and that is the kind of man you will make, my son; and I can say the same of Dexter. You will both make good soldiers." Both the father and the sons shed tears as they realized, as they never had before, the solemn duty which the peril of the Union imposed upon them; and they were inspired to do that duty to the last drop of their life-blood. "There, boys! I did not intend to make a scene like this; but the finding of the arms and ammunition convinces me that your Uncle Titus and his villanous associates mean to make war upon loyal men in this county. When you join the ranks of the Union army, you will find them all in the columns of the enemy. You have done good service to our cause in the discovery and ferreting out of this conspiracy against the true men of this locality." "It was all by accident that I found out about it," added Artie modestly. "I hope you will forgive me for scolding at you for being out so late that night," said Mr. Lyon. "You didn't scold me; you only gave me some good advice, and I hope I shall always remember it. But I did not know then what I had discovered, or where they were storing the arms." "You did exceedingly well, whether you knew what you were doing or not. Now it is driven into my very soul that I ought not to let the enemy profit by obtaining those arms. I have made up my mind that it would be treason, or next door to it, for me to let Titus and his gang have all these weapons; and with the blessing of God they never shall have them!" "That is the talk, father!" exclaimed Deck. "So say we all of us!" Artie chimed in. "But what can we do?"