"Not until he left the store about half an hour ago."
"Oh, you splendid, smart—"
"Spare my blushes, dear girl. As to the things, Caleb, I had them addressed to Black Sam, whom I let into the secret, and I had them wagoned at night from the railway to the bath-house, where he unpacked them and hid them in one of his rooms."
"I want to know! But what put you up to thinkin' o' doin' the greatest thing that—"
"'Twas a story my wife told me, about the way you dispose of your pension. 'Twas all of your own doing, after all, you see."
Caleb looked sheepish, said something about the "boys" becoming uneasy unless the march was resumed, and made haste to rejoin his command, but stopped halfway to the door, and said:—
"Mebbe 'tain't any o' my business, but as I'm Commander of the Post, an' yet you've been managin' it most o' the mornin', an' I hadn't time to ask the why an' wherefore o' things,—how did you get Ojam to carry our flag?"
"Oh, I dared him."
"An' he, bein' a Southerner, wouldn't take a dare?"
"On the contrary, it needed no dare. He said he'd been longing for such a chance for many years; for you'd reminded him one day that he was an American, and that plain American was good enough for you. 'Twas a case exactly like that of the uniforms, Caleb; 'twas you that did it—not I."