Never before had Rodney Gray been thrown into the company of so wild a set of men. If such a thing were possible, they were wilder than those his Cousin Marcy found on his train when he boarded it at Barrington on his way home. The first rational thought that came into his mind was: What a lucky thing that Tom Percival was well out of the way when this news came! Tom would have betrayed himself sure, for he never could have pulled off his hat and shouted and whooped with any enthusiasm when he heard that the cause in which he believed, and for which he was willing to risk his life, had met with disaster. At length the captain, who appeared to have been awed into silence, said slowly: "I, too, would like to see a later paper than this. If it is true that the Federals were utterly routed and thrown into such confusion that their officers could do nothing with them, our victorious troops must have followed them into Washington, and I shouldn't wonder if they were there at this moment, dictating terms of peace to the Lincoln government." The paper that had been given him, proved to be a copy of the _Mobile Register_. As the captain talked he ran his eye rapidly over its columns, and finally found an editorial containing a piece of news that caused him to halt his squad and face his horse about. "Here's something I want to read to you," said he. "Come up close on all sides so that you can hear every word of it. You know that our governor proposed that Missouri should remain neutral, and that a conference was held at the Planter's House in St. Louis to talk the matter over. This is what General Lyon said in reply to the governor's proposition, Now listen, so that you may know who is to blame for the troubles that have come upon us: "'Rather than concede to the State of Missouri the right to demand that government shall not enlist troops within her limits, or bring troops into the State whenever it please, or move its troops at its own will, I would see every man, woman and child in the State dead and buried. This means war.' "What do you boys say to that?" continued the captain. "I say that if the Yankees want war we'll give them more than they'll care to have," answered one of the squad; and all his comrades yelled their approval. "Now while you're reading, captain, suppose you read about that big battle. Let's hear just how bad our fifteen thousand whipped the Yankee thirty-five thousand." The officer complied and read an account of the battle of Bull Run, which was so highly sensational and so utterly unreasonable, that Rodney Gray's common sense would not let him believe, more than half of it. He hoped and believed that the Southern soldiers had gained a glorious victory over the Lincoln hirelings; but that there could have been so great a difference in the size of the contending armies, did not look reasonable. But the captain put implicit faith in the story.