ted and then turned to O'Connor for instructions.

"Report to me when you are ready to move."

"I am ready now, sir."

"Very well, detach your company and cross the ford. We will keep about
half a mile in advance of the main body until I give you other
instructions. Deploy your men in twos and advance as rapidly as you can.
You know the rendezvous and understand the necessity for caution. That
is all."

The man saluted and in five minutes his men were fording the stream with
O'Connor and Mason close in their rear. Across the open valley they made
rapid progress, the men marching in regular order, but when they reached
the wooded country at the foot of the next mountain the officer in
command gave an order in Spanish and the men deployed in twos and
disappeared like shadows into the brush. In a moment not a man was to be
seen, and as O'Connor and Mason entered the woods there was not even a
sound to be heard that would indicate that fifty men were making their
way through the thick bushes ahead of them.

The route O'Connor followed was not so precipitous as that taken by
Washington and they reached the summit of the mountain by noon. Still
O'Connor pushed on, stopping only to drink from a mountain stream and to
dash the cool water over his head and face, an example that Mason
quickly followed. They had scarcely spoken since leaving the ford,
O'Connor saving breath for the work in hand. Once or twice he had turned
to the Midget who toiled manfully on at his side and asked him if he
felt tired. Satisfied with the boy's ready answer that he was "all
right," he would plod on again.

They had made their way about a mile down the mountain side when an
officer stepped out of the bushes in front of them and saluted O'Connor.

"Well, what is it?" asked the captain in Spanish.

"A scout has brought in a prisoner."

"Who is he?"

"A boy. He is apparently faint from exhaustion."

"A boy?" said O'Connor, wonderingly. "I wonder if they can have
escaped?" He repeated the man's words to Mason who despite his own
fatigue, leaped and capered wildly.

"It's Hal Hamilton, I'll bet," he said joyfully. "They must have
escaped. Trust Hal to fool the Dons."

"He knows the countersign and your name, sir, and he keeps repeating
them in a dazed way. That's why the captain thought you might want to
see him."

"I guess it's one of the boys all right, but I wonder where the other
is. If I know them as I think I do one would not leav