In the meantime, Stokes, in citizen’s dress, came quietly and unobserved to St. Louis. When he went to the Arsenal, he found it surrounded by a crowd of sullen, resolute secessionists. At first he was unable even to work his way through the compact throng; but by patience and good nature he finally elbowed his way to the coveted fortress and handed to Captain Lyon the requisition from Governor Yates. At first Lyon doubted if it were possible at that time to meet it, but promptly decided that, if it could be met at all, there must be no delay in action. Both Lyon and Stokes were resourceful. The latter sent a spy into the secession camp. He met him at a designated time and place, and through him learned every move that the secessionists proposed to make. On the 25th of April, a little more than twenty-four hours after his arrival, he telegraphed the “City of Alton” to drop down to the Arsenal landing about midnight. He then returned to the Arsenal and, with the help of the soldiers there, began moving the boxes of muskets from the upper to the lower floor. When this work had been done, he sent some boxes of old flint-lock muskets up the bank of the river, as if he intended to ship them by some steamboat lying at the levee; but it was merely a blind to divert attention from his real enterprise. The secessionists eagerly followed and seized these almost worthless guns; thinking that they had secured a rich prize, they made night hideous by their boisterous rejoicing. A few of them, however, still hung round the Arsenal. These Captain Lyon arrested and locked up. Between eleven and twelve o’clock the “City of Alton” tied up at the landing. The seven hundred men in the Arsenal quickly put aboard of her the ten thousand muskets demanded. Captain Stokes then urgently asked permission to empty the Arsenal of all guns except those that were immediately needed to arm the volunteers that Lyon was gathering around him. He was told to go ahead. With marvellous celerity, he then put aboard the steamer ten thousand more muskets, five hundred new rifle carbines, five hundred revolvers, one hundred and ten thousand musket cartridges, and a considerable quantity of miscellaneous war material. Seven thousand muskets were left to arm the St. Louis volunteers.