, slept also. Around them the
brigades, too, lay sleeping.

A while before dawn a large man in Confederate uniform, using the soft,
lingering speech of the South, appeared almost in the center of the army
of Northern Virginia. He knew all the pass words and told the officers
commanding the watch that the wing under Ewell was advancing more rapidly
than any of the others. Inside the line he could go about almost as he
chose, and one could see little of him, save that he was large of figure
and deeply tanned, like all the rest.

He approached the little opening in which Lee and his staff lay, although
he kept back from the sentinels who watched over the sleeping leader.
But Shepard knew that it was the great Confederate chieftain who lay in
the shadow of the oak and he could identify him by the glances of the
sentinels so often directed toward the figure.

There were wild thoughts for a moment or two in the mind of Shepard.
A single bullet fired by an unerring hand would take from the Confederacy
its arm and brain, and then what happened to himself afterward would not
matter at all. And the war would be over in a month or two. But he put
the thought fiercely from him. A spy he was and in his heart proud of
his calling, but no such secret bullet could be fired by him.

He turned away from the little opening, wandered an hour through the camp
and then, diving into the deep bushes, vanished like a shadow through the
Confederate lines, and was gone to Grant to report that Lee's army was
advancing swiftly to attack, and that the command of Ewell would come in
touch with him first.

Not long after dawn Harry was again on the march, riding behind his
general. From time to time Lee sent messengers to the various divisions
of his army, four in number, commanded by Longstreet, Early, Hill and
Stuart, the front or Stuart's composed of cavalry. Harry's own time came,
when he received a dispatch of the utmost importance to take to Ewell.
He memorized it first, and, if capture seemed probable, he was to tear
it into bits and throw it away. Harry was glad he was to go to Ewell.
In the great campaign in the valley he had been second to Jackson,
his right arm, as Jackson had been Lee's right arm. Ewell had lost a leg
since then, and his soldiers had to strap him in the saddle when he led
them into battle, but he was as daring and cheerful as ever, trusted
implicitly by Lee.

Harry with a salute to his chief rode away. Par