I've given them twenty-four hours to break camp and entrain."

"Does the train master know which troops are going?"

"He has orders to hold three trains, steam up, night and day."

"I see," she murmured, strapping her soft riding hat more securely to
her hair with the elastic band. Her eyes had been wandering restlessly
around the tent as though searching for something which she could not
find.

"Have you a good map of the district?" she asked.

He went to his military chest, opened it, and produced a map. For a
while, both hands on the table, she leaned above the map studying the
environment.

"And Stuart? You say he's roaming around somewhere in touch with Sandy
River?" she asked, pointing with a pencil to that metropolis on the map.

"The Lord knows where _he_ is!" muttered the Colonel. "He may be a
hundred miles south now, and in my back yard to-morrow by breakfast
time. But when he's watching us he's usually near Sandy River."

"I see. And these"--drawing her pencil in a wavering line--"are your
outposts? I mean those pickets nearest Sandy River."

"They are. Those are rifle pits."

"A grand guard patrols this line?" she asked, rising to her feet.

"Yes; a company of cavalry and a field gun."

"Do you issue passes?"

"Not to the inhabitants."

"Have any people--civilians--asked for passes?"

"I had two applications; one from a Miss Carryl, who lives about a mile
beyond here on the Sandy River Road; another from an old farmer, John
Deal, who has a fruit and truck farm half a mile outside our lines. He
wanted to come in with his produce and I let him for a while. But that
leakage worried me, so I stopped him."

"And this Miss Carryl--did she want to go out?"

"She owns the Deal farm. Yes, she wanted to drive over every day; and I
let her until, as I say, I felt obliged to stop the whole business--not
permit anybody to go out or come in except our own troops."

"And still the leakage continues?"

"It certainly does," he said dryly.

The Special Messenger seated herself on one end of the military chest
and gazed absently at space. Her booted foot swung gently at intervals.

"So this Miss Carryl owns John Deal's farm," she mused aloud.

"They run it on shares, I believe."

"Oh! Was she angry when you shut out her tenant, John Deal, and shut her
inside the lines?"

"No; she seemed a little surprised--said it was inconvenient--wanted
permission to write him."

"You gave it?"

"Yes. I int