re, 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.

"Then may I have this tent to myself for a little while? And would you
be kind enough to send for my saddlebags and my own horse."

The Colonel went to the tent flap, spoke to the trooper on guard. When
he came back he said that it was beginning to rain.

"Hard?" she asked, troubled.

"No; just a fine, warm drizzle. It won't last."

"All the better!" she cried, brightening; and it seemed to the young
officer as though th