h he surmised to be of about equal size, creeping along in
the undergrowth on the other side. He followed both bodies with his
glasses. With long looking everything became clearer and clearer.
The moonlight had to him almost the brilliancy of day.

His eyes followed the Union force, until it came to a point where the
creek ran shallow over pebbles. Then the Union leader raised his sword,
uttered a cry of command, and the whole force dashed at the ford.
The cry met its response in an order from Sherburne, and the thickets
flamed with the Southern rifles.

The advantage was wholly with the South, standing on the defense in dark
undergrowth, and the Union troop, despite its desperate attempts at the
ford, was beaten back with great loss.

Harry waited until the result was sure, and then he walked slowly over
the hill toward the point, where the orderly was waiting with the horses.
The man, who knew him, handed him the reins of his mount, saying at the
same time:

"I've a note for you, sir."

"For me?"

"Yes, sir. It was handed to me about fifteen minutes ago by a large man
in our uniform, whom I didn't know."

"Probably a dispatch that I'm to carry to General Lee."

"No, sir. It's addressed to you."

The note was written in pencil on a piece of coarse gray paper, folded
several times, but with a face large enough to show Harry's name upon it.
He wondered, but said nothing to the sentinel, and did not look at the
note again, until he had ridden some distance.

He stopped in a little glade where the moonlight fell clearly. He still
heard scattered firing behind him, but he knew that the skirmish was
in reality over, and he concluded that no further attempt by Union
detachments to advance would be made in the face of such vigilance.
He could report to General Lee that the rear of his army was safe.
So he would delay and look at the letter that had come to him out of the
mysterious darkness.

The superscription was in a large, bold hand, and read:

LIEUTENANT HARRY KENTON,
STAFF OF GENERAL ROBERT E. LEE, C. S. A.,
COMMANDER-IN-CHIEF,
ARMY OF NORTHERN VIRGINIA.

He felt instinctively that something uncommon was coming, and, as most
people do when they are puzzled at the appearance of a letter, he looked
at it some seconds before opening it. Then he read:

MR. KENTON:

I have warned you twice before, once when Jefferson Davis was inaugurated
at Mon