"Free them ourselves!" exclaimed Bertrand. "What are we fighting for but the right to hold our own property?" "I didn't understand it exactly that way. It seems to me that we went to war to defend the right of a state to go out of the Union when it pleases." "I tell you, this war is being fought to establish our title to our own." "It's all right, so we fight well," said Harry, who saw Bertrand's rising color and who believed him to be tinged with fanaticism; "it's all that can be asked of us. After Happy Tom sleeps in the White House with his boots on, as he says he's going to do, we can decide, each according to his own taste, what he was fighting for." "I've known all the time what was in my mind," said Bertrand emphatically. "Of course, the extension of the new republic toward the north will be cut off by the Yankees. Then its expansion must be southward, and that means in time the absorption of Mexico, all the West Indies, and probably Central America." St. Clair was about to retort, but Harry gave him a warning look and he contented himself with rolling into a little easier position. Harry foresaw that these two South Carolinians would not be friends, and in any event he hated fruitless political discussions. Bertrand excused himself presently and went away. "Arthur," said Harry, "I wouldn't argue with him. He's a captain in the Invincibles now, and you're a lieutenant. It's in his power to make trouble for you." "You're not appealing to any emotion in me that might bear the name of fear, are you, Harry?" "You know I'm not. Why argue with a man who has fire on the brain? Although he's older than you, Arthur, he hasn't got as good a rein on his temper." "You can't resist flattery like that, can you, Arthur? I know I couldn't," said Happy Tom, grinning his genial grin. St. Clair's face relaxed. "You're right, fellows," he said. "We oughtn't to be quarreling among ourselves when there are so many Yankees to fight." Mail forwarded from Richmond was distributed in the camp the next day and Harry was in the multitude gathered about the officers distributing it. The delivery of the mail was always a stirring event in either army, and as the war rolled on it steadily increased in importance. There were men in this very group who had not heard from home since they left it two years before, and there were letters for men who would never receive them. The letters were being given out at various points, but where Harry stood a major was calling them in a loud, clear voice. "John Escombe, Field's brigade." Escombe, deeply tanned and twenty-two, ran forward and received a thick letter addressed in a woman's handwriting, that of his mother, and, amid cheering at his luck, disappeared in the crowd. "Thomas Anderson, Gregg's brigade. Girl's handwriting, too. Lucky boy, Tom." "Hey, Tom, open it and show it to us! Maybe her picture's inside it! I'll bet she's got red hair!"