e boys all about the dispositions of the enemy, but the boys
had little to tell.

"They are after us pretty hotly," said the General. "I think they are
going away shortly. It's nothing but a raid, and they are moving on.
We must get back to camp to-night."

"How are you going?" asked the boys. "You haven't any horses."

"We are going to get some of their horses," said the officer. "They
have taken ours--now they must furnish us with others."

It was about time for the boys to start for home. The General took
each of them aside, and talked for a long time. He was speaking to
Willy, on the edge of the clearing, when there was a crack of a twig
in the pines. In a second he had laid the boy on his back in the soft
grass and whipped out a pistol. Then, with a low, quick call to Hugh,
he sprang swiftly into the pines toward the sound.

"Crawl down into the ravine, boys," called Hugh, following his
companion. The boys rolled down over the bank like little ground-hogs;
but in a second they heard a familiar drawling voice call out in a
subdued tone:

"Hold on, Cunnel! it's nobody but me; don't you know me?" And, in a
moment, they heard the General's astonished and somewhat stern reply:

"Mills, what are you doing here? Who's with you? What do you want?"

"Well," said the new-comer, slowly, "I 'lowed I'd come to see if I
could be o' any use to you. I heard the Yankees had run you 'way from
Oakland last night, and was sort o' huntin' for you. Fact is, they's
been up my way, and I sort o' 'lowed I'd come an' see ef I could help
you git back to camp."

"Where have you been all this time? I wonder you are not ashamed to
look me in the face!"

The General's voice was still stern. He had turned around and walked
back to the cleared space.

The deserter scratched his head in perplexity.

"I needn' 'a' come," he said, doggedly. "Where's them boys? I don'
want the boys hurted. I seen 'em comin' here, an' I jes' followed 'em
to see they didn't get in no trouble. But----"

This speech about the boys effected what the offer of personal service
to the General himself had failed to bring about.

"Sit down and let me talk to you," said the General, throwing himself
on the grass.

Mills seated himself cross-legged near the officer, with his gun
across his knees, and began to bite a straw which he pulled from a
tuft by his side.

The boys had come up out of their retreat, and taken places on each
side of the General.

"You