"It wouldn't be safe for you to come to this country, old fellow, and talk as you did while we were at school. You would be mobbed in spite of all I could do to prevent it. I hope you haven't got into any trouble by trying to be true to your colors since you have been in North Carolina. I can talk as I please here, and you know I please to denounce everything except secession and independence. I belong to an independent company of cavalry. The colonel commanding the regiment we wanted to join didn't think he had any authority to accept us unless we would give up our independent organization, and as we were resolved we wouldn't do that, we began to think we would be obliged to fight on our own hook; but just in the nick of time we learned that the troops serving in Missouri, under Price and McCulloch, were mostly partisans, and that either of those commanders would be glad to accept us. So there is where we are going as soon as we can get transportation, and who knows but I may see our old friend Dick Graham? Shall I tell him 'Hello!' for you? We furnish our own horses, the government allowing us sixty cents a day for the use of them. If they die or are killed in action, we are to get another mount from the enemy. Come and join us, Marcy. Throw your Union sentiments to the winds--you'll have to sooner or later--take sides with the friends of your state, swear allegiance to the flag of the Confederacy and battle for the right. Come and join my company and we'll have some high old times running the Yankees out of Missouri." But the sequel proved that the despised Yankees could not be so easily driven; on the contrary they drove the rebels. Marcy's cousin manfully bore a soldier's part in some of the hardest battles that were fought in Missouri; and just what he did, and whether or not he enjoyed the "high old times" that came rather sooner than he expected, shall be told in the succeeding volume of this series which will be entitled, "RODNEY, THE PARTISAN." THE END. THE FAMOUS CASTLEMON BOOKS. BY HARRY CASTLEMON. [Illustration: Specimen Cover of the Gunboat Series.] No author of the present day has become a greater favorite with boys than "Harry Castlemon;" every book by him is sure to meet with hearty reception by young readers generally. His naturalness and vivacity lead his readers from page to page with breathless interest, and when one volume is finished the fascinated reader, like Oliver Twist, asks "for more." **Any volume sold separately.