. "Where is Lieutenant Breckinridge, Tullius?"

Tullius straightened himself. "Lieutenant Breckinridge is at the
colonel's, sah. An' Lieutenant Coffin, he's at the Debatin' Society in
Company C."

Cleave sat down before the pine table. "Give Allan Gold something to
eat, and don't either of you speak to me for twenty minutes." He propped
his head on his hands and stared at the boards. Allan seated himself on
a box beside the fire. Tullius took from a flat, heated stone a battered
tin coffee-pot, poured into an earthenware cup some smoking mixture, and
brought it to the scout. "Hit ain't moh'n half chicory, sah," From an
impromptu cupboard he brought a plate of small round cakes. "Mis'
Miriam, she done mek 'em fer us."

Cleave spoke from the table. His voice was dreamy, his eyes fixed upon
the surface before him as though he were studying ocean depths.
"Tullius, give me a dozen coffee berries."

"Er _cup_ of coffee, you mean, Marse Dick?"

"No, coffee berries. Haven't you any there?"

Tullius brought a small tin box, tilted it, and poured on the table
something like the required number. "Thar's all thar is." He returned to
his corner of the fire, and it purred and flamed upon the crazy hearth
between him and the scout. The latter, his rifle across his knees, now
watched the flames, now the man at the table. Cleave had strung the
coffee berries along a crack between the boards. Now he advanced one
small brown object, now retired another, now crossed them from one side
to the other. Following these manoeuvres, he sat with his chin upon
his hand for five minutes, then began to make a circle with the berries.
He worked slowly, dropping point after point in place. The two ends met.
He rose from the table. "That's all right. I am going to brigade
headquarters for a little, Allan. Suppose you come along. There are some
things I want to know--those signals, for instance." He took up his hat
and sword. "Tullius, you'll have Dundee saddled at four o'clock. I'll
see Lieutenant Breckinridge and the colonel. I won't be back until after
taps. Cover the fire, but wait up for me."

He and Allan went out together. Tullius restored the coffee berries to
the tin box, and the box to the cupboard, sat down by the fire, and fell
again into a nodding dream of Three Oaks, of the garden, and of his
grandchildren in the quarter.

CHAPTER X

LIEUTENANT McNEIL

The Williamsport ferry-boat came slowly across the Potomac, from the