would be to follow to Richmond and watch the blue-coats. I easily
slipped among the prisoners, came to the city and saw every man that
went to Castle Winder. But no one that I knew was among them, and I made
up my mind that Jack had escaped. I saw Wesley Boone's father and sister
at the Spottswood House yesterday, but I was too late to catch them,
and, when I asked the clerk at the desk, be said they had taken quarters
in the town--he didn't know where."

"That's a fact," Olympia exclaimed; "they left Washington before us. I
wonder if they found Wesley?"

"I don't know," Dick continued, "The officers were brought in a gang by
themselves, and I didn't see them. Well, I hung about the town, visiting
all the places I thought it likely Jack might be, and then I joined a
cavalry company that belonged to Early's brigade, at Manassas. I was
going there with them this morning to get back to our lines and find
Jack, when I saw the paragraph in _The Examiner_, telling of your coming
and whereabouts."

CHAPTER XV.

ROSEDALE.

"What an intrepid young brave you are, Dick!" Olympia cried, as the
artless narrative came to an end.

"What a cruel boy, to leave his family and--and--run into such dreadful
danger!" Merry expostulated.

"What a devoted boy, to risk his life and liberty for our poor Jack!"
Mrs. Sprague said, bending forward to stroke the tow-head. The carriage
passed down the same road that Jack had gone the day before, whistling
sarcasms at his keeper. At Harrison's Landing there was a delay of
several hours, and the impatient party wandered on the shores of the
majestic James--glittering, like a sylvan lake, in its rich border of
woodland. The sun was too hot to permit of the excursion Dick suggested,
and late in the afternoon the wheezy ferry carried them down the
lake-like stream. On every hand there were signs of peace--not a fort,
not a breastwork gave token that this was in a few months to be the
shambles of mighty armies, the anchorage of that new wonder, the iron
battle-ship; the scene of McClellan's miraculous victory at Malvern, of
Grant's slaughtering grapplings with rebellion at bay, of Butler's comic
joustings, and the last desperate onslaughts of Hancock's legions. The
air, tempered by the faint flavor of salt in the water, filled the
travelers with an intoxicating vigor, lent strength to their jaded
forces, which, while tense with expectation, could not wholly resist the
delicious aroma, th