ough it.
Your knife may be sharp and heavy, but it vill vear out first. Do I
not tell the truth, Vilhelmina, mein vife?"

"All your life you haf been a speaker of der truth, Hans, mein husband."

"I think you're a poor prophet, Mr. Onderdonk," said Dalton. "We
recognize, however, the fact that we can't get any information out of
you. But we ask one thing of you."

"Vat iss dot?"

"Please to remember that while we two are rebels, as you call them,
we neither burn nor kill. We have offered you no rudeness whatever,
and the Army of Northern Virginia is composed of men of the same kind."

"I vill remember it," said Onderdonk gravely, and as they saluted him
politely, he returned the salute.

"Not a bad fellow, I fancy," said Harry, as they rode away.

"No, but our stubborn enemy, all the same. Wherever our battle is
fought we'll find a lot of these Pennsylvania Dutchmen standing up to
us to the last."

Harry and Dalton rejoined the staff, bringing with them no information
of value, and they marched slowly on another day, camping in the cool of
the evening, both armies now being lost to the anxious world that waited
and sought to find them.

Lee himself, as Harry gathered from the talk about him, was uncertain.
He did not wish a battle now, but his advance toward the Susquehanna
had been stopped by the news that the Army of the Potomac could cut in
behind. The corps of Ewell had been recalled, and Harry, as he rode to
it with a message from his general, saw his old friends again. They
were in a tiny village, the name of which he forgot, and Colonel Talbot
and Lieutenant-Colonel St. Hilaire, sitting in the main room of what
was used as a tavern in times of peace, had resumed the game of chess,
interrupted so often. Lieutenant-Colonel St. Hilaire was in great glee,
just having captured a pawn, and Colonel Talbot was eager and sure of
revenge, when Harry entered and stated that he had delivered an order
to General Ewell to fall back yet farther.

"Most untimely! Most untimely!" exclaimed Colonel Talbot, as they
rapidly put away the board and chessmen. "I was just going to drive
Hector into a bad corner, when you came and interrupted us."

"You are my superior officer, Leonidas," said Lieutenant-Colonel Hector
St. Hilaire, "but remember that this superiority applies only to
military rank. I assert now, with all respect to your feelings, that
in regard to chess it does not exist, never has and never will."