"Somebody called you, Captain. I could'a sworn it! Somebody right here." He indicated the room with a nervous wave of his pistol. "Used all three of your names too. Like whisperin', it was. Captain, sir--you all right? Sir? _There!_--you hear 'em? A woman and a man, whisperin' something about a daft sorta gun. Who is it, Captain? How are we hearin' 'em?" When the hackles rose just so high on Jake Lavender's neck he fainted. His captain followed suit a few moments later. * * * * * ... glanced at his watch, climbed respectfully to his feet. "Madam, my pardons but my visitor's visa is up tomorrow noon. I'll have to ride till night to catch the Shenandoah stage or I'll never make my morning steamboat connections to New York." The artillery major, Peter Hall, bowed gravely to his hostess. "It's extremely kind of such an important personage as yourself, Miss Mosby, to spend a while with a poor foreigner." He straightened, studied his friend. "Well, Ed, are you in on this project? Our Government needs your help if we are ever to perfect an electric cannon. And you are, remember, still a Union citizen." "I haven't forgotten, Pete." He regarded Julie Mae's placid face. "It's sort of up to you, Miss Julie. I don't like the idea of bigger and better weapons--you both know me that well, but I guess I hate what the French are doing in Mexico even worse." "Our Governments now stand together, Major. Ed has my leave to do the research." "Fine." The officer stepped aside to let Julie Mae pass first through the door. "Have y'all time for refreshments before leaving, sir? There's a very proper tavern on the campus." Hall frowned at his watch. "I'll make the time, Ma'am." Julie Mae Mosby, heir to her family's huge grants and honorary president of the culturally important Mosby University, patted a long curl into perfection with her folded fan. "I've learned one thing from y'all. Not all Northernahs are the uncouth messes your Erskine Caldwell says y'all are." The officer managed a bleak smile. "You refer to his 'Marijuana Road'?" Julie Mae nodded, allowed herself to be helped down a short flight of lustrous tiled steps. "That's the very book. I should think y'all'd be mighty unhappy with that scamp." "He's not too well received in polite Union circles, I assure you, Ma'am." Professor Wilkes decided his friend had taken enough. "Miss Julie's just teasin' you, Pete. She's traveled quite extensively in Union." "That's where I met Ed here, major. Three or four years ago--nineteen forty-eight, I believe. He was slavin' his little ole brains away at dinky little Northwestern U." The woman nodded graciously to a bowing negro slave, trilled her charming laugh. "Why, Major, I do believe it's storming up to rain. If I'm going to walk with y'all to the tavern someone's going to have to give me his coat. Professor?" "Certainly, Miss Julie. Here."