"In about an hour. Miss Carryl puts them in a bag and gives them to my messenger who brings them to me. Then I inspect every pit, tie up the bag, seal it, and give it to my messenger. When he takes the mail to the outposts he rides on for half a mile and leaves the sealed bag at Deal's farm."

"Does your messenger know what is in the bag?"

"No, he doesn't."

She nodded, amused, saying carelessly:

"Of course you trust your post-rider?"

"Absolutely."

The Special Messenger swung her foot absently to and fro, and presently opened another letter:

Dear Mr. Deal:

I am sending you twenty more peach pits for planting. What you write me about the bees is satisfactory. I have received the bees you sent. There is no reason why you should not make the exchange with Mr. Enderly, as it will benefit our hives as well as Mr. Enderly's to cross his Golden Indias with my Blacks.

The Messenger studied the letter thoughtfully; askance, the officer watched the delicate play of expression on her absorbed young face, perhaps a trifle incredulous that so distractingly pretty a woman could be quite as intelligent as people believed.

She looked up at him quietly.

"So you gave Deal permission to send some bees to Miss Carryl and write her a letter?"

"Once. I had the letter brought to me and I sent her a copy. Here it is--the original."

He produced Deal's letter from the dispatch pouch, and the Messenger read:

Miss Evelyn Carryl, Osage Court House.

Respected Miss:

I send you the bees. I seen Mr. Enderly at Sandy River he says he is very wishful for to swap bees to cross the breed I says it shorely can be done if you say so I got the pits and am studyin'

how to plant. The fruit is a rottin' can't the Yankees at Osage buy some truck nohow off'n me? So no more with respect from

John Deal Supt.

"That seems rather harmless, doesn't it?" asked the Colonel wearily.

"I don't--know. I _think_ I'll take a look at John Deal's beehives."

"His _beehives_!"

"Yes."

"What for?"

She shrugged her shoulders.

"I don't know--exactly. I was always fond of bees. They're so useful"--she looked up artlessly--"so clever--quite wonderful, Colonel.

Have you ever read anything about bees--how they live and conduct themselves?"

The Colonel eyed her narrowly; she laughed, sprang up from the military chest, and handed back his letters.

"You have already formed your theory?" he inquired with a faintly patronizing air, under which keen disappointment betrayed itself where the grim, drooping mouth tightened.

"Yes, I have. There's a link missing, but--I may find that before night.

You can give me--_how_ long?"

"The Bucktails leave at nine. See here, Messenger! With all the civility and respect due you, I----"

"You are bitterly disappointed in me," she finished coolly. "I don't blame you, Colonel Gay."

He was abashed at that, but unconvinced.

"Why do you suspect this Miss Carryl and this man, Deal, when I've showed you how impossible it is that they could send out information?"

"Somehow," she said quietly, "they _do_ send it--if they are the only two people who have had passes, and who now are permitted to correspond."

"But you saw the letters----"

"So did you, Colonel."

"I did!" he said emphatically; "and there's nothing dangerous in them.

As for the peach pits----"

"Oh, I'll take your word for them, too," she said, laughing. "When is your post-rider due?"

"In a few minutes, now."

She began to pace backward and forward, the smile still lightly etched on her lips. The officer watched her; puckers of disappointed anxiety creased his forehead; he bit at his pipestem, and thought of the Bucktails. Certainly Stuart would hear of their going; surely before the northern reenforcements arrived the gray riders would come thundering into Osage Court House. Fire, pillage, countless stores wasted, trains destroyed, miles of railroads rendered useless. What, in Heaven's name, could his superiors be thinking of, to run such risk with one of the bases of supplies? Somewhere--_somewhere_, not far from corps headquarters, sat incompetency enthroned--gross negligence--under a pair of starred shoulder straps. And, musing bitterly, he thought he knew to whom those shoulder straps belonged.

"The damn fool!" he muttered, biting at his pipe.

"Colonel," said the Messenger cheerily, "I am going to take the mail to the outposts to-day."

"As you like," he said, without interest.

"I want, also, a pass for Miss Carryl."

"To pass our lines?"

"To pass _out_. She will not care to return."

"Certainly," he said with amiable curiosity.

He scratched off the order and she took it.

"Ask for anything you desire," he said, smiling.