Signal that he was watching a grey scout car of the Red army, going
north," said Jack, with a laugh.

Canfield heard the laugh with a rueful smile.

"You're certainly going to mess things up!" he said. "I ought to be
court-martialled for letting you break up our signal chain this way."

Meanwhile Tom Binns was working his flags frantically.

"O. K.," he reported to Jack. "Message coming!"

Jack sprang to his side, and together the two Red Scouts watched the
flags flashing in the distance. Jack showed a good deal of excitement.

"Gee," he said, "this is all to the good! That's a message from General
Bliss himself, I'll bet! See, Tom? He's sending orders to General Brown,
who commands his right wing. They're going to swing around back toward
Hardport in a big half-circle, of which this place where we are now is
pretty nearly the centre. And it's the Newville road that's the line of
their march, and not this road over the creek at all. That's nerve for
you, if you like, because the Newville pike is right in our lines, and
if we move fast we can turn that right wing right in on their center."

For half an hour they stayed there, realizing more and more with every
passing minute that the whole Blue army was developing a great and
sweeping attack on Hardport, and in a direction entirely different from
that being taken by General Bean. The information so far obtained by
General Harkness obviously was entirely misleading, and in sending
General Bean to Cripple Creek, as he had, he had simply deprived himself
of a brigade, and, as he would learn in the morning, when the attack
would most certainly begin, weakened a vital part of his lines. Bean was
moving directly away from the spot where the attack would be
concentrated, and the enemy would be able, unless something were quickly
done, to strike at the unprotected center of the Red line, drive right
through it, and throw the main portion of his army, like a great wedge,
between the two sections of the Red forces.

Jack's face grew grave as message after message confirmed his fears. He
looked at his watch.

"We've got to get word of this to General Harkness," he said. "Tom, I'm
afraid you'll have to stay here and take chances on being caught. I've
got to get back to headquarters and tell General Harkness what we've
learned here. And if we both go, and leave the relay broken here,
they'll smell a rat at once, and investigate. There's enough of a trail
here to show a blind