weather in Mississippi, but, if he could, he always
protected himself at night. He was not a vain lad, but he felt proud
over his success. Hertford's six hundred horse were a welcome addition
to any army.

He lay back soon with a knapsack as a pillow under his head and listened
to the noises of the camp, blended now into a rather musical note.
Several cooking fires still burned here and there and figures passed
before them. Dick observed them sleepily, taking no particular note,
until one, small and weazened, came. The figure was about fifty yards
away, and there was a Union cap instead of a great flap-brimmed hat on
the head, but Dick sprang to his feet at once, snatched a pistol from
his belt and rushed toward it.

The evil figure melted away like a shadow, and two astonished soldiers
seized the youth, who seemed to be running amuck in the camp, pistol in
hand.

"Let go!" exclaimed Dick. "I've seen a man whom I know to be a spy, and
a most dangerous one, too."

They could find no trace of Slade. Dick returned crestfallen to his
blanket, but he recalled something now definitely and clearly. Slade
was the little man whom he had seen carrying the log the morning he left
General Grant's camp, on his mission.

The sergeant, who had never stirred from his own blanket, sat up when
Dick returned.

"Who was he, Mr. Mason?" he asked.

"Slade himself. He must have seen me jump up, because he vanished like
a ghost. But I gained something. I know now that I saw him here in our
uniform just before I started to find Colonel Hertford. That was why I
was followed."

"The cunning of an Indian. Well, we'll be on the watch for him now,
but I imagine he's already on the way to Jackson with the news of our
advance and an estimate of our numbers. We can't do anything to head him
off."

On the second day after joining the column Dick was ahead with the
cavalry, riding beside Colonel Hertford, and listening to occasional
shots in their front on the Jackson road. Both believed they would soon
be in touch with the enemy. Sergeant Whitley, acting now as a scout, had
gone forward through a field and in a few minutes galloped back.

"The enemy is not far away," he said. "They're posted along a creek,
with high banks and in a wood. They've got a strong artillery too, and I
think they about equal us in numbers."

Dick carried the report to the commander of the column, and soon the
trumpets were calling the men to battle. The crackle