he range of the Northern guns,
two men sat playing chess. They were elderly, gray and thin, but
never had the faces of the two colonels been more defiant. With the
Confederacy crumbling about them it was characteristic of both that they
should show no despair, if in truth they felt it. Their confidence in
Lee was sublime. He could still move mountains, although he had no tools
with which to move them, and the younger officers, mere boys many of them,
would come back to them again and again for encouragement. Spies had
brought word that Grant, after nine months of waiting, and with Sheridan
and a huge cavalry force on his flank, was about to make his great
attack. But the dauntless souls of Colonel Leonidas Talbot and
Lieutenant Colonel Hector St. Hilaire remained unmoved.

"I'm glad the rains are apparently about to cease, Hector," said Colonel
Talbot. "When the ground grows firmer it will give General Lee a chance
to make one of his great circling swoops, and rout the Yankee army."

"So it will, Leonidas. We've been waiting for it a long time, but the
chance is here at last. We've had enough of the trenches. It's a
monotonous life at best. Ah, I take your pawn, the one for which I've
been lying in ambush more than a month."

"But that pawn dies in a good cause, Hector. When he fell, he uncovered
the path to your remaining knight, as a dozen more moves will show you.
What is it, Harry?"

Harry Kenton, thin, but hardy and strong, saluted.

"We have news, sir," he replied, "that the portion of the Union army
under General Sheridan is moving. I bring you a dispatch from General
Lee to march and meet them. Other regiments, of course, will go with
you."

They put away the chessmen and with St. Clair and Langdon marshaled the
troops in line of battle. Harry felt a sinking of the heart when he saw
how thin their ranks were, but the valiant colonels made no complaint.
Then he went back to General Lee, whose manner was calm in face of the
storm that was so obviously impending. The information had come that
Grant and the bulk of his army were marching to the attack on the White
Oak road, and, if he broke through there, nothing could save the Army of
Northern Virginia.

Harry, after taking the dispatch to the Invincibles, carried orders to
another regiment, while Dalton was engaged on similar errands. It was
obvious to him that Lee was gathering his men for a great effort, and
his heart sank. There was no