ay by a breeze.

He returned deeply stirred by the appearance and disappearance--easy,
alike--of Shepard. His sense of the man's uncanny powers and of his
danger to the Confederacy was increased. He seemed to come and go
absolutely as he pleased. It was true that in the American Civil War the
opportunities for spies were great. All men spoke the same language,
and all looked very much alike. It was not such a hard task to enter the
opposing lines, but Shepard had shown a daring and success beyond all
comparison. He seemed to have both the seven league boots and the
invisible cloak of very young childhood. He came as he pleased, and
when pursuit came he vanished in thin air.

Harry bit his lips in chagrin. He felt that Shepard had scored on him
again. It was true that he had been victorious in that fight in the
river, when victory meant so much, but since then Shepard had triumphed,
and it was bitter. He hardened his determination, and resolved that
he would always be on the watch for him. He even felt a certain glow,
because he was one of two in such a conflict of skill and courage.

The meeting having been finished, he went down one of the streets of
tents to the camp of the Invincibles. Colonel Leonidas Talbot and
Lieutenant-Colonel Hector St. Hilaire were not playing chess. Instead
they were sitting on a pine log with Happy Tom and St. Clair and other
officers, listening to young Julien de Langeais, who sat on another log,
playing a violin with surpassing skill. Lieutenant-Colonel St. Hilaire,
knowing his prowess as a violinist, had asked him to come and play for
the Invincibles. Now he was playing for them and for several thousand
more who were gathered in the pine woods.

Young de Langeais sat on a low stump, and the great crowd made a solid
mass around him. But he did not see them, nor the pine woods nor the
heavy cannon sitting on the ridges. He looked instead into a region of
fancy, where the colors were brilliant or gay or tender as he imagined
them. Harry, with no technical knowledge of music but with a great love
of it, recognized at once the touch of a master, and what was more,
the soul of one.

To him the violin was not great, unless the player was great, but when
the player was great it was the greatest musical instrument of all.
He watched de Langeais' wrapt face, and for him too the thousands of
soldiers, the pines and the cannon on the ridges melted away. He did not
know what th