, until,
through very weakness of spirit, you will be glad to tell us all you
know about Buell's or any other Northern force."

"Try me, and see," said Dick proudly.

The blue eye of the silent Johnston flickered for an instant.

"But it is true," said Beauregard, resuming his role of cross-examiner,
"that your army, considering itself secure, has not fortified against
us? It has dug no trenches, built no earthworks, thrown up no abatis!"

The boy stood silent with folded arms, and Colonel George Kenton,
standing on one side, threw his nephew a glance of sympathy, tinged with
admiration.

"Still you do not answer," continued Beauregard, and now a strong note
of irony appeared in his tone, "but perhaps it is just as well. You
do your duty to your own army, and we miss nothing. You cannot tell
us anything that we do not know already. Whatever you may know we know
more. We know tonight the condition of General Grant's army better than
General Grant himself does. We know how General Buell and his army stand
better than General Buell himself does. We know the position of your
brigades and the missing links between them better than your own brigade
commanders do."

The eyes of the Louisianian flashed, his swarthy face swelled and his
shoulders twitched. The French blood was strong within him. Just so
might some general of Napoleon, some general from the Midi, have shown
his emotion on the eve of battle, an emotion which did not detract from
courage and resolution. But the Puritan general, Johnston, raised a
deprecatory hand.

"It is enough, General Beauregard," he said. "The young prisoner will
tell us nothing. That is evident. As he sees his duty he does it, and
I wish that our young men when they are taken may behave as well. Mr.
Mason, you are excused. You remain in the custody of your uncle, but I
warn you that there is none who will guard better against the remotest
possibility of your escape."

It was involuntary, but Dick gave his deepest military salute, and said
in a tone of mingled admiration and respect:

"General Johnston, I thank you."

The commander-in-chief of the Southern army bowed courteously in return,
and Dick, following his uncle, left the ravine.

The six generals returned to their council, and the boy who would not
answer was quickly forgotten. Long they debated the morrow. Several
have left accounts of what occurred. Johnston, although he had laid the
remarkable ambush, and was expecting