amned rebels--"

"Do you know," demanded the captain, "this one? This is Lieutenant
McNeill."

The man looked, General Kelly's courier facing him squarely. There was a
silence upon the road to Williamsport. The mountaineer spat. "He may be
a lieutenant, but he ain't a McNeill. Not from the South Branch valley,
he ain't."

"He says he is."

"Do you think, my friend," asked the man in question, and he looked
amused, "that you really know all the McNeills, or their party? The
valley of the South Branch is long and wide, and the families are large.
One McNeill has simply escaped your observation."

"There ain't," said the man, with grimness, "a damned one of them that
has escaped my observation, and there ain't one of them that ain't a
damned rebel. They're with Ashby now, and those of them that ain't with
Ashby are with Jackson. And you may be Abraham Lincoln or General Banks,
but you ain't a McNeill!"

The ranks opened and there emerged a stout German musician. "Herr
Captain! I was in Winchester before I ran away and joined der Union.
Herr Captain, I haf seen this man. I haf seen him in der grey uniform,
with der gold sword and der sash. And, lieber Gott, dot horse is known!
Dot horse is der horse of Captain Richard Cleave. Dot horse is named
Dundee."

"'Dundee--'" exclaimed Marchmont. "That's the circumstance. You started
to say 'Dundee.'"

He gave an abrupt laugh. "On the whole, I like you even better than I
did--but it's a question now for a drumhead and a provost guard. I'm
sorry--"

The other's hand had been resting upon his horse's neck. Suddenly there
was a motion of his knee, a pressure of this hand, a curious sound,
half speech, half cry, addressed to the bay beneath him. Dundee backed,
gathered himself together, arose in air, cleared the rail fence,
overpassed the embankment and the rivulet beneath, touched the frosted
earth of the cornfield, and was away like an arrow toward the misty
white river. Out of the tumult upon the road rang a shot. Marchmont, the
smoking pistol still in hand, urged his horse to the leap, touched in
turn the field below, and at top speed followed the bay. He shouted to
the troopers behind him; their horses made some difficulty, but in
another moment they, too, were in pursuit. Rifles flashed from the road,
but the bay had reached a copse that gave a moment's shelter. Horse and
rider emerged unhurt from the friendly walls of cedar and locust.
"Forward, sharpshooters!" cried