"It need not amaze you.... I was born in Sandy River.... And in happier times--when my parents were living--I spent the school vacations there.... We had always kept bees.... There was--in those days--a boy.

We were very young and--romantic. We exchanged vows--and bees--and messages in cipher.... I knew this cipher as soon as I saw it. I invented it--long ago--for him and me."

"W-well," stammered the bewildered Colonel, "I don't see how----"

"I do, sir. Our girl and boy romance was a summer dream. One day he dreamed truer. So did the beautiful Miss Carryl.... And the pretty game I invented for him he taught in turn to his fiancee.... Well, he died in The Valley.... And I have just given his fiancee her passport. It would be very kind of you to station a guard at the Carryl place for its protection. Would you mind giving the order, sir?... _He_ is buried there."

The Colonel, hands clasped behind him, walked to the tent door.

"Yes," he said, "I'll give the order."

A few moments later the drums of the Bucktails began beating the assembly.

VII

THE PASS

Her map, which at headquarters was supposed to be reliable, had grossly misled her; the road bore east instead of north, dwindling, as she advanced, to a rocky path among the foothills. She had taken the wrong turn at the forks; there was nothing to direct her any farther--no landmarks except the general trend of the watercourse, and the dull cinders of sunset fading to ashes in the west.

It was impossible now to turn back; Carrick's flying column must be very close on her heels by this time--somewhere yonder in the dusk, paralleling her own course, with only a dark curtain of forest intervening.

So all that evening, and far into the starlit night, she struggled doggedly forward, leading her lamed horse over the mountain, dragging him through laurel thickets, tangles of azalea and rhododendron, thrashing across the swift mountain streams that tumbled out of starry, pine-clad heights, foaming athwart her trail with the rushing sound of forest winds.

For a while the clear radiance of the stars lighted the looming mountains; but when wastes of naked rock gave place to ragged woods, lakes and pits of darkness spread suddenly before her; every gully, every ravine brimmed level with treacherous shadows, masking the sheer fall of rock plunging downward into fathomless depths.

Again and again, as she skirted the unseen edges of destruction, chill winds from unsuspected deeps halted her; she dared not light the lantern, dared not halt, dared not even hesitate. And so, fighting down terror, she toiled on, dragging her disabled horse, until, just before dawn, the exhausted creature refused to stir another foot.

Desperate, breathless, trembling on the verge of exhaustion, with the last remnants of nervous strength she stripped saddle and bridle from the animal; then her nerves gave way and she buried her face against her horse's reeking, heaving shoulders.

"I've got to go on, dear," she whispered; "I'll try to come back to you.... See what a pretty stream this is," she added, half hysterically, "and such lots of fresh, sweet grass.... Oh, my little horse--my little horse! I'm so tired--so tired!"

The horse turned his gentle head, mumbling her shoulder with soft, dusty lips; she stifled a sob, lifted saddle, saddlebags, and bridle and carried them up the rocky bank of the stream to a little hollow. Here she dropped them, unstrapped her revolver and placed it with them, then drew from the saddlebags a homespun gown, sunbonnet, and a pair of coarse shoes, and laid them out on the moss.

Fatigue rendered her limbs unsteady; her fingers twitched as she fumbled with button and buckle, but at last spurred boots, stockings, jacket, and dusty riding skirt fell from her; undergarments dropped in a circle around her bare feet; she stepped out of them, paused to twist up her dark hair tightly, then, crossing the moss to the stream's edge, picked her way out among the boulders to the brimming rim of a pool.

In the exquisite shock of the water the blood whipped her skin; fatigue vanished through the crystal magic; shoulder-deep she waded, crimson-cheeked, then let herself drift, afloat, stretching out in ecstasy until every aching muscle thrilled with the delicious reaction.

Overhead, tree swallows darted through a sky of pink and saffron, pulsating with the promise of the sun; the tinted peak of a mountain, jaggedly mirrored in the unquiet pool, suddenly glowed crimson, and the reflections ran crisscross through the rocking water, lacing it with fiery needles.

She looked like some delicate dawn-sprite as she waded ashore--a slender, unreal shape in the rosy glow, while behind her, from the dim ravine, ghosts of the mountain mist floated, rising like a company of slim, white angels drifting to the sky.

All around her now the sweet, bewildered murmur of purple martins grew into sustained melody; thrush and mocking bird, thrasher and cardinal, sang from every leafy slope; and through the rushing music of bird and pouring waterfall the fairy drumming of the cock-o'-the-pines rang out in endless, elfin reveille.

While she was managing to dry herself and dress, her horse limped off into the grassy swale below to drink in the stream and feed among the tender grasses.

Before she drew on the homespun gown she tucked her linen map into an inner skirt pocket, flat against her right thigh; then, fastening on the shabby skirt, she rolled up her riding habit, laid it with lantern, revolver, saddle, bridle, boots, and bags, in the hollow and covered all over with heaps of fragrant dead leaves and branches. It was the best she could do, and the time was short.

Her horse raised his wise, gentle head, and looked across the stream at her as she hastened past, then limped stiffly toward her.

"Oh, I can't stand it if you hobble after me!" she wailed under her breath. "Dearest--dearest--I will surely come back to you.

Good-by--good-by!"

On the crest of the ridge she cast one swift, tearful glance behind.

The horse, evidently feeling better, was rolling in the grass, all four hoofs waving at the sky. And she laughed through the tears, and drew from her pockets a morsel of dry bread which she had saved from the saddlebags. This she nibbled as she walked, taking her bearings from the sun and the sweep of the southern mountain slopes; and listening, always listening, for the jingle and clank of the Confederate flying battery that was surely following along somewhere on that parallel road which she had missed, hidden from her view only by a curtain of forest, the width of which she had no time to investigate. Nor did she know for certain that she had outstripped the Confederate column in the race for the pass--a desperate race, although the men of that flying column, which was hastening to turn the pass into a pitfall for the North, had not the faintest suspicion that the famous Special Messenger was racing with them to forestall them, or even that their secret was no longer a secret.

In hot haste from the south hills she had come to warn Benton's division of the ambuscade preparing for it, riding by highway and byway, her heart in her mouth, taking every perilous chance. And now, at the last moment, here in the West Virginian Mountains, almost within sight of the pass itself, disaster threatened--the human machine was giving out.

There were just two chances that Benton might yet be saved--that his leisurely advance had, by some miracle, already occupied the pass, or, if not, that she could get through and meet Benton in time to stop him.

She had been told that there was a cabin at the pass, and that the mountaineer who lived there was a Union man.

Thinking of these things as she crossed the ridge, she came suddenly into full view of the pass. It lay there just below her; there could be no mistake. A stony road wound along the stream, flanked by forest-clad heights; she recognized the timber bridge over the ravine, which had been described to her, the corduroy way across the swamp, the single, squat cabin crowning a half-cleared hillock. She realized at a glance the awful trap that this silent, deadly place could be turned into; for one rushing moment her widening eyes could almost see blue masses of men in disorder, crushed into that horrible defile; her ears seemed to ring with their death cries, the rippling roar of rifle fire. Then, with a sharp, indrawn breath, she hastened forward, taking the descent at a run. And at the same moment three gray-jacketed cavalrymen cantered into the road below, crossed the timber bridge at a gallop, and disappeared in the pass, carbines poised.

She had arrived a minute too late; the pass was closed!

Toiling breathlessly up the bushy hillock, crouching, bending, creeping across the stony open where scant grass grew in a meager garden, she reached the cabin. It was empty; a fire smoldered under a kettle in which potatoes were boiling; ash cakes crisped on the hearth, bacon sizzled in a frying pan set close to the embers.

But where was the tenant?

A shout from the road below brought her to the door; then she dropped flat on her stomach, crawled forward, and looked over the slope.

A red-haired old man, in his shirt sleeves, carrying a fishing pole, was running down the road, chased by two gray-jacketed troopers. He ran well, throwing away his pole and the string of slimy fish he had been carrying; but, half way across the stream, they rode him down and caught him, driving their horses straight into the shallow flood; and a few moments later a fresh squad of cavalry trotted up, forced the prisoner to mount a led horse, and, surrounding him, galloped rapidly away southward.

The Special Messenger lay perfectly still and flat, watching, listening, waiting, coolly alert for a shadow of a chance to slip out and through the pass; but there was to be no such chance now, for a dozen troopers came into view, running their lean horses at top speed, and wheeled straight into the pass. A full squadron followed, their solid galloping waking clattering echoes among the rocks. Then her delicate ears caught a distant, ominous sound--nearer, louder, ringing, thudding, jarring, pounding--the racket of field artillery arriving at full speed.

And into sight dashed a flying battery, guns and limbers bouncing and thumping, whips cracking, chains crashing, the six-horse teams on a dead run.

An officer drew bridle and threw his horse on its haunches; the first team rushed on to the pass with a clash and clank of wheels and chains, swung wide in a demi-tour, dropped a dully glistening gun, and then came trampling back. The second, third, and fourth teams, guns and caissons, swerved to the right of the hillock and came plunging up the bushy slope, horses straining and scrambling, trampling through the wretched garden to the level grass above.

One by one the gun teams swung in a half circle, each dropped its mud-spattered gun, the cannoneers sprang to unhook the trails, the frantic, half-maddened horses were lashed to the rear.

The Special Messenger rose quietly to her feet, and at the same instant a passing cannoneer turned and saw her in the doorway.

"Hey!" he exclaimed; "what you doin' thar?"

A very young major, spurring up the slope, caught sight of her, too.

"This won't do!" he began excitedly, pushing his sweating horse up to the door. "I'm sorry, but it won't do--" He hesitated, perplexed, eyeing this slim, dark-eyed girl, who stood as though dazed there in her ragged homespun and naked feet.

Colonel Carrick, passing at a canter, turned in his saddle, calling out:

"Major Kent! Keep that woman here! It's too late to send her back."

The boy-major saluted, then turned to the girl again:

"Who are you?" he asked, vexed.