ry foot of ground within five
miles of the historic site, and who had surveyed every inch of water
from the mouth of the Potomac to the city of Washington. He had hoped to
retrieve his fame by a successful capture at the eleventh hour.

At last, though it seemed a century in coming, the morning of the sixth
of July broke solemnly upon Mt. Vernon. The revered site was flanked on
all sides by seething, excited, hopeful humanity such as these historic
shores had never before witnessed. The official command had been to
abstain from all noise and confusion on land or water from the time of
the sunrise gun.

The cannon boomed from the new navy. Then came the hush. The last hours
of waiting were spent in maddening inactivity, in strained repose. From
what quarter would the ominous signal be seen? Who would catch the first
glimpse of the boldest and most successful gang of malefactors that this
country had ever produced?

PART II.

Colonel Oddminton was a widower, with only one son, fifteen years old.
It was natural, then, that the colonel himself should balance between
forty-five and fifty years of age. Let the fact only be whispered in
desert places that the colonel was no more a colonel than you are. He
had never smelt powder, except when shooting mallard ducks. He never had
seen a regiment, except when it was marching on Decoration Day
peacefully through the woebegone streets of Charleston, preparatory to a
good dinner. His nearest idea of regalia and medals consisted of the
many adornments worn by Queer Fellows or any other order of Honorable
Unextinguished Redskins as they either laid a corner-stone or a comrade
ceremoniously in the ground. Where could he have lived and not have been
an active partisan in the stirring days of our devastating civil war?
Surely, not in the United States!

Of English exile blood, that came over a hundred years ago, he would
have been a thorough American had his parents and his environment
permitted. His family had settled on one of the many Sea Islands that
dot the coast of South Carolina, and there they had staid and raised the
famous Sea Island cotton which is still successfully used, so fine its
fibre, to adulterate a fashionable fabric. Like the baryte of Cheshire,
the cotton of Oddminton Island became valuable as it became an ally to
fraud. The one increased the weight of white lead; the other swelled the
unlawful receipts of the manufacturers of silk. Oddminton Island did