history as a national hope and a national danger. The nation, measured by its swift leap into maturity, its striking power to keep going at the same swift pace, was about his age. South, North, and West it had lived, or was living, his life. It had his faults and his virtues; like him, it was high-spirited, high-minded, alert, active, manly, generous, and with it, as with him, the bad was circumstantial, trivial, incipient; the good was bred in the Saxon bone and lasting as rock--if the surface evil were only checked in time and held down. Like him, it needed, like a Titan, to get back, now and then, to the earth to renew its strength. And the war would send the nation to the earth as it would send him, if he but lived it through. There was little perceptible change in the American officer and soldier, now that the work was about actually to begin. A little more soberness was apparent. Everyone was still simple, natural, matter-of-fact. But that night, doubtless, each man dreamed his dream. The West Point stripling saw in his empty shoulder-straps a single bar, as the man above him saw two tiny bars where he had been so proud of one. The Captain led a battalion, the Major charged at the head of a thousand strong; the Colonel plucked a star, and the Brigadier heard the tramp of hosts behind him. And who knows how many bold spirits leaped at once that night from acorns to stars; and if there was not more than one who saw himself the war-god of the anxious nation behind--saw, maybe, even the doors of the White House swing open at the conquering sound of his coming feet. And, through the dreams of all, waved aimlessly the mighty wand of the blind master--Fate--giving death to a passion for glory here; disappointment bitter as death to a noble ambition there; and there giving unsought fame where was indifference to death; and then, to lend substance to the phantom of just deserts, giving a mortal here and there the exact fulfilment of his dream. Two toasts were drunk that night--one by the men who were to lead the Rough Riders of the West. "May the war last till each man meets death, wears a wound, or wins himself better spurs." And, in the hold of the same ship, another in whiskey from a tin cup between two comrades: "Bunkie," said Blackford, to a dare-devil like himself, "welcome to the Spanish bullet that knocks for entrance here"--tapping his heart. Basil struck the cup from his hand, and Blackford swore, laughed, and put his arm around the boy. X