"You understand," Mr. White continued, "I don't want you to leave me; but I owe it to the Union to give her the best I have when she asks it. I am past middle age myself and I don't think I am worth enough as a soldier to volunteer yet; there are plenty of younger and stronger men still pouring in to fill up the armies. But if the war drags on and the time comes that I feel she needs my actual, physical services, I shall go. Meantime, as I say, I shall give her the best I have in other ways, and you are part of that best. Though you are not old enough to be a soldier, I know you will appreciate that your work as a civilian employee may be quite as valuable to the Government as though you were enlisted in the service." "Indeed I do, Mr. White," answered Al, "and I shall do my best to serve the Union faithfully." In the new work upon which he entered next day Al continued throughout that momentous Summer and Fall. Though serving in a capacity both humble and obscure, he had his part in preparing and forwarding the supplies which enabled General Grant to cut loose from his base, swing his army around to the rear of Vicksburg, and two months later to capture that Gibraltar of the Mississippi with all its garrison and munitions of war. He helped to make ready the subsistence carried by Grant's and Sherman's armies when they went to the relief of Chattanooga; and from the depots where he worked a constant stream of stores was always going forward to the thousands of Union troops scattered in fortified posts and encampments or marching hither and thither all over the Southwest fighting innumerable minor battles and skirmishes. But his daily occupation was very prosaic and needs no more than casual mention. At length, when Autumn came again, another letter was received from General Sibley. It was as disappointing as the one of the year before. He told briefly of the long Summer's campaign in which he had marched westward from the Minnesota River to the Missouri, defeating the Indians in three pitched battles and driving them across the Missouri, and of the later advance of another column up the valley of the Missouri, under General Alfred Sully, which had also encountered and defeated the Indians. But neither column had rescued Tommy, though they had heard rumors of his whereabouts and had gained a little new information concerning his captor.