Heading his troops on the march, watching the thousand baleful fires of the enemy at night, when friend and foe go down in the thundering crash of battle, Valois, amazed, asks himself, "Are these sturdy foes the Northern mudsills?" For, proud and dashing as the Louisiana Tigers and Texan Rangers prove, steady and vindictive the rugged Mississippians, dogged and undaunted the Georgians, fierce the Alabamans--the honest candor of Valois tells him no human valor can excel the never-yielding Western troops. Their iron courage honors the blue-clad men of Iowa, Michigan, and the Lake States. No hired foreigners there; no helot immigrants these men, whose glittering bayonets shine in the lines of Corinth, as steadily as the spears of the old Tenth Roman Legion--Caesar's pets. With unproclaimed chivalry and a readiness to meet the foe which tells its own story, the Western men come on. Led by Grant, Sherman, Rosecrans, Sheridan, Thomas, McPherson, and Logan, they press steadily toward the heart of the Confederacy. The rosy dreams of empire in the great West fade away. Farragut, Porter, and the giant captain, Grant, cut off the Trans-Mississippi from active military concert with the rest of the severed Confederacy. To and fro rolls the red tide of war. Valois' soldierly face, bronzed with service, shows only the steady devotion of the soldier. He loves the cause--once dear in its promise--now sacred in its hours of gloomy peril and incipient decadence. Gettysburg, Vicksburg, and Port Hudson are terrible omens of a final day of gloom. Letters from his wife, reports from Judge Hardin, and news from the Western shores give him only vague hints of the future straggling efforts on the Pacific. The only comforting tidings are that his wife and child are well, by the peaceful shores of Lagunitas. The absence of foreign aid, the lack of substantial support from the Northern sympathizers, and the slight hold on the ocean of the new government, dishearten him. The grim pressure everywhere of the Northern lines tells Valois that the splendid chivalry of the Southern arms is being forced surely backward. Sword in hand, his resolute mind unshaken, the Louisianian follows the Stars and Bars, devoted and never despairing. "Quand meme." In the long silent days at Lagunitas, the patient wife learns much from the cautious disclosures of Padre Francisco. Her soldier husband's letters tell her the absent master of Lagunitas is winning fame and honor in a dreadful conflict. It is only vaguely understood by the simple Californian lady. Her merry child is rapidly forgetting the self-exiled father. Under the bowers of Lagunitas she romps in leafy alley and shady bower. Judge Hardin, grave-faced, cautious, frugal of speech, visits the domain several times. In conference with Padre Francisco and the vigilant "Kaintuck," he adjusts the accumulating business affairs.