by other
influential people, and the banks would be ruined," Win explained in
the same low tone.

"Stufton, go to the rear of the house, and send the first six men you
come to around to me. Tell them to make no noise," continued the
lieutenant, addressing the bugler.

He was not absent more than three minutes, and the men crept around the
house as though they had been engaged in a burglarious enterprise,
securing their sabres so that they did not rattle. Milton wondered what
the cavalryman in command intended to do, but he waited patiently for
the outcome. Ordering the men in a whisper to follow him, Deck stole
silently to the portico of the mansion on the east side, which was
precisely like one on the west.

The front door of the mansion was wide open. Deck stationed his six men
on the piazza, close to the building, and then passed into the hall
through the open passage. A door on each side opened into as many large
apartments. The one on the right was plainly the parlor. On a broad
sofa reclined a man with white hair and beard. He lay there, and did
not move any more than if the breath had left his body. In the room on
the left lay an elderly woman on another sofa, as motionless as the
other.

Heavy footsteps could be heard on the floors of the upper story, with
the sound of rough voices, from which proceeded a constant flow of
profanity. Deck stepped out of the hall to the piazza, and called the
men to him one at a time, and then stationed them in the hall
surrounding the staircase leading to the second story.

"If any one attempts to descend the stairs, warn him not to do so, and
shoot him if he disobeys," said Deck to each of the troopers, who had
his carbine in readiness for use.

"Are there any back stairs in the house, Win?" asked Deck in the usual
whisper.

"There are, by the dining-room in the rear," replied the guide, who
began to understand the method by which the lieutenant meant to
operate, but he said nothing.

Deck went to the west door of the mansion, opened it, and called three
more men, whom he instructed as he had the others, and stationed them
at the foot of the back stairs. Calling a corporal and a private, he
sent them to Life and Tilford, with an order to secure all horses, and
load their carbines, putting their revolvers in their belts. Then they
were to wait for the signal from the bugle.

"Now we will look into the two rooms, and see if the man and woman on
the sofas are dead," sa