"I am sure I don't know. We'll be Union all over for the next twenty miles or so, and then perhaps you can show yourself in your true colors while I do the deceiving; but you must be careful and not speak my name. I declare I had no idea that the Percivals were so well known through this neck of the woods. But I'll tell you what I honestly believe: Price's cavalry is scouting all through the central and southern parts of the State, shooting Union men and picking up recruits, and as soon as we begin to hear of them, I think you had better desert me and join them; that is, unless you have come to your senses, and made up your mind that you had better cast your lot with the loyal people of the nation." "Don't you know any better than to talk to me in that style?" exclaimed Rodney. "Do you imagine that I have come up here just to have the fun of going back on my principles?" "No; I don't suppose you have, but I think you ought to before it is too late. However, let politics go. Have you heard from any of the Harrington boys since we left school? Where is your cousin Marcy?" This was a more agreeable topic than the one they had been discussing, but Rodney had little information to impart. He had written to Marcy but had received no reply, and the reader knows the reason why. It was because Marcy dare not write and tell Rodney how matters stood with him, for fear that the letter might be stopped by some of his Secession neighbors,--Captain Beardsley, for instance,--who would use it against him. He told of the letters he had received from Dixon, Billings and Dick Graham, and they were all in the army, or going as soon as they could get there. He hadn't heard from any other Barrington fellow, but he believed that Tom Percival was the one black sheep in the flock--that the others had gone with their States. "I don't believe it," said Tom, with decided emphasis. "I am not the only Union fellow there was in the academy, by a long shot, and I know that those who opposed secession didn't do it to hear themselves talk. Your cousin Marcy didn't go with his State, and there are others like him scattered all over the country." "Say," exclaimed Rodney, bending forward in his saddle and speaking just loud enough for Tom, who was riding in advance, to catch his words. "Do you believe Merrick's darkey can be depended on?" "Of course," answered Tom. "Why not? What makes you ask the question?" "I don't like the way he has of looking over his shoulder and listening to our conversation. You are all right, of course, but I am afraid I have said too much. I was so glad to get a chance to talk to you that I never thought of him." "Didn't you once assure your cousin Marcy that all the blacks in the South would go with their masters against the abolitionists?" inquired Tom. "Yes, I believe I did, and I think so yet. I don't think we have a darkey on our place who would accept his freedom to-day if it were offered to him."