qualities. One of the greatest of military mistakes is to hold your enemy in contempt, and to this mistake is due some of the disasters of the early days of the war.

And the lesson may be carried further. One of the greatest mistakes in the battle of life is to underrate those who oppose you or the hindrances that lie in your path. Always regard your opponent as fully your equal in everything, and then use your best endeavors to overcome him. Do your best at all times, and you have more than an even chance of success in the long run.

Jack and Harry listened a few moments to the debate among the men in front of the recruiting office, and then made their way inside. A man in the uniform of a captain was sitting behind a desk taking the names of those that wanted to enlist, and telling them to wait their turn for examination. In a few moments a man came out from an inner room, and then a name was called and its owner went inside.

"Don't think you 'll get in there, sonny," said a man, who observed the puzzled look of Jack as he glanced toward the inner door.

"What are they doing in there?" queried Jack encouraged by the friendly way in which he had been addressed.

"They 're putting the recruits through their paces," was the reply; "examining 'em to see whether they 'll do for service."

"How do they do it?"

"They strip a man down to his bare skin," was the reply, "and then they thump him and measure him, to see if his lungs are sound; weigh him and take his height, make him jump, try his eyes, look at his teeth; in fact, they put him through very much as you've seen a horse handled by a dealer who wanted to buy him. They've refused a lot of men here that quite likely they 'll be glad to take a few months from now."

And so it was. The first call for troops was responded to by far more men than were wanted to fill the quota, and the recruiting officers could afford to be very particular in their selections. Subsequent calls for troops were for three years' service, and, as the number under arms increased, recruiting became a matter of greater difficulty. Men that were refused at the first call were gladly accepted in later ones. Before the end of the first year of the war more than six hundred and sixty-one thousand men were under arms in the North.

Jack and Harry walked up to the desk where the officer sat as soon as they saw he was unoccupied.

"Well, my boys, what can I do for you?" said the captain cheerily.

Jack waited a moment for Harry to speak, and finding he did not do so, broke the ice himself with—

"We want to enlist, General."

The youth was unfamiliar with the insignia of rank, and thought he would be on the safe side by applying the highest title he knew of. The gilded buttons and shoulder-straps dazzled his eyes, and it is no wonder that he thought a man with so much ornamentation was deserving of the highest title.

"Captain, if you please," said the officer, smiling; "but I'm afraid you 're too young for us. How old are you?"

"Coming sixteen," both answered in a breath.

The captain shook his head as he answered that they were altogether too young.

"Could n't we do something else?" queried Harry, eagerly. "We can drive horses and work about the camp."

"If you ever go for a soldier," replied the captain, "you 'll find that the men do their own camp work, and don't have servants. Perhaps we can give you a chance at the teams. Here, take this to the quartermaster," and he scribbled a memorandum, suggesting that the boys might be handy to have about camp and around the horses. They could n't be enlisted, of course, but he liked their looks, and thought they could afford to feed the youths, anyhow.

The boys eagerly hastened to the quartermaster, whom they had some difficulty in finding. He questioned them closely, and finally said they might go with the regiment when it moved. It was not then ready for the field, and he advised the boys to stay at home until the organization was complete and the regiment received orders to march to the seat of war.

The parental permission was obtained with comparatively little difficulty, as the fathers of both the youths were firm believers in the theory of a short war, without any fighting of consequence; they thought the outing would be a pleasant affair of two or three months at farthest. Had they foreseen the result of the call to arms, and especially the perils and privations which were to befall Jack and Harry, it is probable that our heroes would have been obliged to run away in order to carry out their intention of going to the field. And possibly their ardor would have been dampened a little, and they might have thought twice before marching away as they did when the regiment was ordered to the front and the scene of active work in the field.

CHAPTER II. ST. LOUIS AND CAMP JACKSON.

While Jack and Harry are waiting impatiently for the order that will give them a taste of military life, we will leave them for a while and go down the Mississippi river to the great city of St. Louis.

The state of Missouri was one of those known as the "Border States," as it lay on the border between North and South. It was the most northerly of the slavehold-ing states west of the Mississippi river, and the system of slavery did not have a strong hold upon her people. Probably the majority of her native-born citizens were in favor of slavery, or only passively opposed to it, but it contained two hundred thousand residents of German birth, and these almost to a man were on the side of freedom. When the question of secession was submitted to the popular vote, the state, by a majority of eighty-thousand votes, refused to secede; but the governor and nearly all the rest of the state authorities were on the side of secession, and determined to take Missouri out of the Union in spite of the will of the people.

Governor Jackson was in full sympathy with the secession movement, and with the reins of power in his hands he made the most of his opportunities. General Sterling Price, who commanded the Missouri state militia, was equally on the side of slavery and its offspring, secession, though at first he opposed the movement for taking the state out of the Union, and was far more moderate in his councils than was the governor and others of the state officials. Earnestly opposed to these men were Francis P. Blair, junior, and other unconditional Union men, most of whom lived in St. Louis, and had for years been fighting the battle of freedom on behalf of the state. They believed and constantly argued that Missouri would be far better off as a free state than a slave one, while the opponents of slavery in the Eastern and extreme Northern states had based their arguments mainly on the ground of justice to the black man. The Free-State men of Missouri gave the rights of the negro a secondary place and sometimes no place at all, but confined themselves to showing that the state would be better off and more prosperous under freedom than under slavery. They had a good knowledge of human nature, similar to that displayed by the author of the old maxim that "Honesty is the best policy."

"Be honest," he would say, "because it is the best policy to be so, and let the question of right or wrong take care of itself."

All through the month of April, 1861, the plotting to take Missouri out of the Union was carried on by the secession party, and at the same time there was counterplotting on the part of the Union men. The secessionists, having the aid and sympathy of the state authorities, had the advantages on their side, and were not slow to use them. They organized forces under the name of minute men, and had them constantly drilling and learning the duties of soldiers. Later, under an order issued by the Governor, they formed a camp of instruction, under command of General D. M. Frost, in