hotel. Cleave spoke abruptly. "I am to report
presently at headquarters, so I will say good-bye here." The two touched
hands. "A pleasant gallop! You'll have a moon and the road is good. If
you see Randolph of Taliaferro's, tell him to bring that book of mine he
has."

He walked away, stalwart in the afterglow. Stafford watched him from the
porch. "Under other circumstances," he thought, "I might have liked you
well enough. Now I do not care if you lead your mad general's next mad
charge."

The night fell, mild as milk, with a great white moon above the
treetops. It made like mother-of-pearl the small grey house with pointed
windows occupied, this December, by Stonewall Jackson. A clock in the
hall was striking nine as Cleave lifted the knocker. An old negro came
to the door. "Good-evening, Jim. Will you tell the general--"

Some one spoke from down the hall. "Is that Captain Cleave? Come here,
sir."

Passing an open door through which could be seen a clerk writing and an
aide with his hands behind him studying an engraving of Washington
crossing the Delaware, Cleave went on to the room whence the voice had
issued. "Come in, and close the door," it said again.

The room was small, furnished with a Spartan simplicity, but with two
good lamps and with a log of hickory burning on the hearth. A table held
a number of outspread maps and three books--the Bible, a dictionary, and
Napoleon's "Maxims." General Jackson was seated on a small,
rush-bottomed chair beside the table. By the window stood a soldier in
nondescript grey attire, much the worse for mud and brambles. "Captain
Cleave," said the general, "were you ever on the Chesapeake and Ohio
Canal?"

"No, sir."

"Do you know the stretch of the Potomac north of us?"

"I have ridden over the country between Harper's Ferry and Bath."

"Do you know where is Dam No. 5?"

"Yes, sir."

"Come nearer, Gold," said the general. "Go on with your report."

"I counted thirty boats going up, general," said Allan. "All empty.
There's a pretty constant stream of them just now. They'll get the coal
at Cumberland and turn back toward Washington in about ten days. It is
estimated that a thousand tons a day will go down the canal--some of it
for private use in Washington, but the greater part for the warships and
the factories. The flatboats carry a large amount of forage. The Yankees
are using them, too, to transport troops. There is no attempt to rebuild
the section of the Ba