For several weeks the excitement in Hillsborough, as elsewhere in the South, continued to run high. The blood of the people was at fever heat. The air was full of the portents and premonitions of war. Drums were beating, flags were flying, and military companies were parading. Jack Walthall had raised a company, and it had gone into camp in an old field near the town. The tents shone snowy white in the sun, uniforms of the men were bright and gay, and the boys thought this was war. But, instead of that, they were merely enjoying a holiday. The ladies of the town sent them wagon-loads of provisions every day, and the occasion was a veritable picnic--a picnic that some of the young men remembered a year or two later when they were trudging ragged, barefooted, and hungry, through the snow and slush of a Virginia winter. But, with all their drilling and parading in the peaceful camp at Hillsborough, the young men had many idle hours, and they devoted these to various forms of amusements. On one occasion, after they had exhausted their ingenuity in search of entertainment, one of them, Lieutenant Buck Ransome, suggested that it might be interesting to get up a joke on Little Compton. "But how?" asked Lieutenant Cozart. "Why, the easiest in the world," said Lieutenant Ransome. "Write him a note, and tell him that the time has come for an English-speaking people to take sides, and fling in a kind of side-wiper about New Jersey." Captain Jack Walthall, leaning comfortably against a huge box that was supposed to bear some relation to a camp-chest, blew a cloud of smoke through his sensitive nostrils and laughed. "Why, stuff, boys!" he exclaimed somewhat impatiently, "you can't scare Little Compton. He's got grit, and it's the right kind of grit. Why, I'll tell you what's a fact--the sand in that man's gizzard would make enough mortar to build a fort." "Well, I'll tell you what we'll do," said Lieutenant Ransome. "We'll sling him a line or two, and if it don't stir him up, all right; but if it does, we'll have some tall fun." Whereupon, Lieutenant Ransome fished around in the chest, and drew forth pen and ink and paper. With some aid from his brother officers he managed to compose the following: "LITTLE MR. COMPTON. _Dear Sir_--The time has arrived when every man should show his colors. Those who are not for us are against us. Your best friends, when asked where you stand, do not know what to say. If you are for the North in this struggle, your place is at the North. If you are for the South, your place is with those who are preparing to defend the rights and liberties of the South. A word to the wise is sufficient. You will hear from me again in due time. NEMESIS."