in the direction where Ashley's command lay,
bid him ride on with him, and would chat with him on terms of friendly
intimacy about people they both knew at Richmond, or as to the details
of his work, and sometimes they would sit down together under the shade
of some trees, take out the contents of their haversacks, and share
their dinners.

"This is the second time I have had the best of this," the colonel
laughed one day; "my beef is as hard as leather, and this cold chicken
of yours is as plump and tender as one could wish to eat."

"I have my own boy, colonel, who looks after the ten of us stationed at
Elmside, and I fancy that in the matter of cold rations he gives me an
undue preference. He always hands me my haversack when I mount with a
grin, and I quite understand that it is better I should ask no questions
as to its contents."

"You are a lucky fellow," Stuart said. "My own servant is a good man,
and would do anything for me; but my irregular hours are too much for
him. He never knows when to expect me; and as he often finds that when I
do return I have made a meal an hour before at one of the outposts, and
do not want the food he has for hours been carefully keeping hot for me,
it drives him almost to despair, and I have sometimes been obliged to
eat rather than disappoint him. But he certainly has not a genius for
cooking, and were it not that this riding gives one the appetite of a
hunter, I should often have a good deal of difficulty in devouring the
meal he puts into my haversack."

But the enemy were now really advancing, and on the 12th of June a
trooper rode in from the extreme left, and handed Vincent a dispatch
from Colonel Stuart.

"My orders were," he said, "that, if you were here, you were to carry
this on at all speed to General Johnston. If not, someone else was to
take it on."

"Any news?" Vincent asked, as, aided by Dan, he rapidly saddled
Wildfire.

"Yes," the soldier said; "2000 of the enemy have advanced up the western
side, and have occupied Romney, and they say all Patterson's force is on
the move."

"So much the better," Vincent replied, as he jumped into the saddle. "We
have been doing nothing long enough, and the sooner it comes the
better."

It was a fifty-mile ride; but it was done in five hours, and at the end
of that time Vincent dismounted in front of General Johnston's quarters.

"Is the general in?" he asked the sentry at the door.

"No, he is not in; but here he