"I thank you, sir, for the assurance," replied Rodney. He made his best salute and retired, but during the rest of the day he was not as jubilant as he had been when he came off post; and when he went back that night to do duty at the general's tent, he took note of the fact that his commander paid no more attention to him than he would have paid to an entire stranger. Rodney felt hurt at that, and as soon as he could do so, after guard-mount the next morning, he hunted up his friend Dick and told him the whole story. He wanted sympathy and encouragement and got both. "You did perfectly right," said Dick, emphatically. "We could have passed the examination easy enough, and in a week or two might have been galloping around camp covered with gold lace, and looking as sweet as two government pets; but we don't care half as much for staff office as we do for our discharges. You made the general mad and I am sorry for that; but after all it's natural, for the commander who discharges the smallest number of men will stand highest in the good graces of his superiors. See? So long as he keeps his troops in the service, it doesn't make a particle of difference whether he keeps them in by promises or threats. He's a bully fellow, and the despots at Richmond will reward him." Some of the sergeant's words were confirmed that very afternoon, and in a most startling manner. For days it had been whispered about among the men that there was trouble brewing in General Bragg's corps, and on this particular day it was brought to a head by the mutiny of a Tennessee regiment, who stacked arms and refused to do duty. The twelve months for which they volunteered had expired and they wanted to go home. Before entering the service they made provision for their families for just one year, and since that time their State had been over-ran with raiding parties from both armies, their crops had been destroyed, their stock killed, their buildings given to the flames, and their wives and children turned out into the weather. They wanted to see these helpless ones taken to places of security, and then they would return to a man, and stand by their comrades until the last Yankee invader had been driven into the Ohio river. But Bragg said they shouldn't go, and fixed things so they couldn't. He did just what Beauregard did when Hindman's Arkansas troops prepared to return to their State to repel the "invasion" of General Curtis. He told them that if they didn't pick up those guns in less than five minutes he would have the last one of them shot, and they picked them up; but in an hour's time it was whispered through the ramp that all the service old Daddy Bragg would get out of those Tennesseans wouldn't amount to much. We shall presently see how much truth there was in the report.