een relieved from command under circumstances indicative
of disapproval of his methods, he should consider it indelicate on his
part to say what he thought of the matter in question.

But the orderly trumpeter had told the sergeant-major that Captain
Devers was on the piazza looking in the adjutant's window when the
gentlemen were there examining the map, and that he entered the
hall-way. The sergeant-major told Mr. Leonard, and Leonard was actually
startled. He conveyed the information to Pegleg, and Pegleg sent his
compliments to Captain Devers with the information that his immediate
presence was desired, so Devers came, and shrewdly guessed what was the
cause. Certainly, he said, he went to the office to get certain papers
that he had left in the commanding officer's desk. He did look in for
one instant through the adjutant's window, attracted by the unusual
sight of the adjutant, the chaplain, and his own subaltern, of whose
services he had been deprived, in apparent consultation. They were so
absorbed in talk that they did not hear him as he entered his own office
or when he left. Certainly he lit no candle; he needed none. He knew
just where his papers were, got them, and came away. Did he leave before
or after the others? Really, that was a matter he couldn't answer. He
was absorbed in his own reflections when he came out and couldn't say
whether the other gentlemen were there or not.

Pegleg asked whether he had any theory as to the disappearance of the
batch of papers from Leonard's desk, and Devers said he had none
whatever, he didn't know how the matter could be supposed to interest
him. He did not inquire the means resorted to, but perhaps that was
unnecessary, as the drawer had evidently been forced by a heavy chisel
and the woodwork about the lock was crushed. Leonard glowered at him
with stormy eyes during the brief interview but, true to his notions of
subordination, asked no questions whatever. It was the colonel who
presently gave it up as a hopeless job and dismissed the cavalryman with
a brief, "Well, that will do, captain; I see you can't help us," and
Devers left with livid, twitching face. He had no fear of Stone,
weakened as he evidently was both physically and mentally by his recent
shock. It was that silent, gloomy thunder-cloud of an adjutant he
dreaded, and with good reason. There was an unsettled account between
these men and one that Devers would have been glad indeed to drop, but
Leonard