lyzing the situation, the colonel is compelled to realize that
to any one but himself the doctor's story would appear unworthy of
credence. He is in this uncomfortable frame of mind when a staff-officer
comes to see him with some papers from the quartermaster-general that
call for an immediate investigation of the affairs of the missing
Lieutenant Hollins, and for two or three days Colonel Putnam is away at
the supply depot on the railway. It is there that he learns the pleasant
news that his gallant young comrade has been promoted to a most
desirable staff position, and ordered to report for duty in Washington
as soon as able to travel. He writes a line of congratulation to Abbot,
and begs him to be sure and send word when he will come through, so that
they may meet, and then returns to his patient overhauling of the
garbled accounts of the quondam quartermaster.

No answer comes from Abbot, and the colonel is so busy that he thinks
little of it. The investigation is giving him a world of insight into
the crookedness of the late administration, and has put him in
possession of facts and given rise to theories that are of unusual
interest, and so, when he hears that Abbot was able to leave the
hospital and ride slowly in to the railway and so on to Baltimore, he
merely regrets not having seen him, and thinks little of it.

But the provost-marshal has been busily at work; has interviewed Abbot
and cross-examined the landlady. He has found an officer who says that
the night of the escapade at Frederick his horse was taken from in front
of the house of some friends he was visiting in the southern edge of the
town, and was found next morning by the pickets clear down at the bridge
where the canal crosses the Monocacy; and the pickets said he looked as
though he had been ridden hard and fast, and that no trace of rider
could be found. Inquiry among patrols and guards develops the fact that
a man riding such a horse, wearing such a hat and cape as was described,
but with a smooth face and spectacles, had passed south during the
night, and claimed to be on his way to Point of Rocks with despatches
for the commanding officer from General Franklin. He exhibited an order
made out for Captain Hollister, and signed by Seth Williams,
adjutant-general of the army in the field. No such officer had reached
Point of Rocks, and the provost-marshal becomes satisfied that on or
about the 4th or 5th of October this very party who was prowli