"That was the reason I kept to myself," answered Rodney, handing back the paper which proved that his new acquaintance was a captain in the Confederate army. "I should think you would be afraid to have that commission about you. I left all my soldier things at home." "I reckon I am safe now, but I might not be a week hence," said the captain. "Who are you any way, if it is a fair question, and where are you going?" Rodney explained in a few hasty words, and was sorry to hear the captain declare, as he shook his finger at him: "You are making a great mistake. The place for a young man with a military education is in the regular army; not the volunteers, understand, but the regulars, who will be continued in the service after our independence has been acknowledged. I am surprised that your friends didn't point that out to you." "I have gone too far along this road to back out now," replied Rodney. "We'll get by Cairo all right, won't we?" "I think so. There have been no restrictions placed upon travel yet that I have heard of." "How about Cape Girardeau?" "That place is garrisoned. You mustn't think of getting off there. How would you get through the lines without a pass?" "Well, I must get off somewhere along the Missouri shore, for it wouldn't be safe for me to go on to St. Louis." "Of course it wouldn't. That Union cotton-factor would have you arrested the minute you put your foot on the levee. I'll tell you what I'll do," said the captain, after thinking a moment. "The first clerk, with whom I have a slight acquaintance, is solid, and I'll make it my business to ask him if we are going to land anywhere on the Missouri side between Cape Girardeau and St. Louis. If we are, I'll tip you the wink, and you can be ready to go ashore." "Thank you, sir," said Rodney, gratefully. "That young chap has no idea what he is going into," said the captain, after he had told Rodney's story to some of his friends on the boiler deck. "It's neighbor against neighbor all through the southern and western parts of Missouri, and for a week or two past there has been the worst kind of a partisan warfare going on. How he is going to get through I don't know, for if he meets an armed man on the way how is he going to tell whether he is Union or Confederate?" There was but one opinion expressed when the captain finished his story, and that was that Rodney Gray was a foolhardy young fellow. CHAPTER VI. UNDER SUSPICION.