"How long have I?"

"About a day."

"When do the Bucktails go?"

"At nine to-night."

"Who knows it?"

"Who doesn't? I can't move a regiment and its baggage in a day, can I?

I've given them twenty-four hours to break camp and entrain."

"Does the train master know which troops are going?"

"He has orders to hold three trains, steam up, night and day."

"I see," she murmured, strapping her soft riding hat more securely to her hair with the elastic band. Her eyes had been wandering restlessly around the tent as though searching for something which she could not find.

"Have you a good map of the district?" she asked.

He went to his military chest, opened it, and produced a map. For a while, both hands on the table, she leaned above the map studying the environment.

"And Stuart? You say he's roaming around somewhere in touch with Sandy River?" she asked, pointing with a pencil to that metropolis on the map.

"The Lord knows where _he_ is!" muttered the Colonel. "He may be a hundred miles south now, and in my back yard to-morrow by breakfast time. But when he's watching us he's usually near Sandy River."

"I see. And these"--drawing her pencil in a wavering line--"are your outposts? I mean those pickets nearest Sandy River."

"They are. Those are rifle pits."

"A grand guard patrols this line?" she asked, rising to her feet.

"Yes; a company of cavalry and a field gun."

"Do you issue passes?"

"Not to the inhabitants."

"Have any people--civilians--asked for passes?"

"I had two applications; one from a Miss Carryl, who lives about a mile beyond here on the Sandy River Road; another from an old farmer, John Deal, who has a fruit and truck farm half a mile outside our lines. He wanted to come in with his produce and I let him for a while. But that leakage worried me, so I stopped him."

"And this Miss Carryl--did she want to go out?"

"She owns the Deal farm. Yes, she wanted to drive over every day; and I let her until, as I say, I felt obliged to stop the whole business--not permit anybody to go out or come in except our own troops."

"And still the leakage continues?"

"It certainly does," he said dryly.

The Special Messenger seated herself on one end of the military chest and gazed absently at space. Her booted foot swung gently at intervals.

"So this Miss Carryl owns John Deal's farm," she mused aloud.

"They run it on shares, I believe."

"Oh! Was she angry when you shut out her tenant, John Deal, and shut her inside the lines?"

"No; she seemed a little surprised--said it was inconvenient--wanted permission to write him."

"You gave it?"

"Yes. I intimated it would save time if she left her letters to him unsealed. She seemed quite willing."

"You read them all, of course, before delivering them?"

"Of course. There was nothing in them except instructions about plowing, fruit picking, and packing, and various bucolic matters."

"Oh! Nothing to be read between the lines? No cipher? No invisible ink?

No tricks of any sort?"

"Not one. I had a detective here. He said there was absolutely no harm in the letters, in Miss Carryl, or in John Deal. I have all the letters if you care to look at them; I always keep the originals and allow only copies to be sent to old man Deal."

"Let me see those letters," suggested the Messenger.

The Colonel, who had been sitting on the camp table, got off wearily, rummaged in a dispatch box, and produced three letters, all unsealed.

Two were directed in a delicately flowing, feminine hand to John Deal, Waycross Orchard. The Messenger unfolded the first and read:

Dear Mr. Deal:

Colonel Gay has thought it necessary, for military reasons, to revoke my pass; and I shall, therefore, be obliged hereafter to communicate with you by letter only.

I wish, if there are negroes enough remaining in the quarters, that you would start immediately a seedling orchard of white Rare-ripe peaches from my orchard here. I have permission to send the pits to you by the military post-rider who passes my house. I will send you twenty every day as my peaches ripen.

Please prepare for planting. I hope your rheumatism is better.

Yours very truly, Evelyn Carryl.

The Messenger's dark eyes lifted dreamily to the Colonel:

"You gave her permission to send the pits by your post-rider?"

"Yes," he said, smiling; "but I always look over them myself. You know the wedding gown of the fairy princess was hidden in a grape seed."

"You are _quite_ sure about the pits?"

"Perfectly."

"Oh! When does the next batch of twenty go?"