here is a
special train going through with ammunition, and as everything will
make way for that it will not be long behind the four o'clock, and
likely enough may pass it on the way. There is a horse-box attached to
it, and as I only take one horse there will be room for yours."

"I haven't brought my horse down," Harry Furniss said; "but I will
certainly go with you by the ten o'clock. Then we can have a long talk.
I don't think I have seen you since the day you asked me to lend you my
boat, two years ago."

"Can you spare me two hours now?" Vincent asked. "You will do me a very
great favor if you will."

Harry Furniss looked at his watch. "It is eleven o'clock now; we have a
lot of people to lunch at half-past one, and I must be back by then."

"You can manage that easy enough," Vincent replied; "in two hours from
the time we leave here you can be at home."

"I am your man, then, Vincent. Just wait five minutes--I have to see
someone in here."

A few minutes later Harry Furniss came out again and mounted.

"Now which way, Vincent? and what is it you want me for?"

"The way is to Jackson's place at the Cedars; the why I will tell you
about as we ride."

Vincent then recounted his feud with the Jacksons, of which, up to the
date of the purchase of Dinah Moore, his friend was aware, having been
present at the sale. He now heard of the attack upon young Jackson by
Tony, and of the disappearance of Dinah Moore.

"I should not be at all surprised, Wingfield, if your surmises are
correct, and that the old scoundrel has carried off the girl to avenge
himself upon Tony. Of course, if you could prove it, it would be a very
serious offense; for the stealing of a slave, and by force too, is a
crime with a very heavy penalty, and has cost men their lives before
now. But I don't see that you have anything like a positive proof,
however strong a case of suspicion it may be.

"I don't see what you are going to say when you get there."

"I am going to tell him that, if he does not say what he has done with
the girl, I will have his son arrested for treachery as soon as he sets
foot in the Confederacy again."

"Treachery?" Furniss said in surprise. "What treachery has he been
guilty of? I saw that he was one of those who escaped with you, and I
rather wondered at the time at you two being mixed up together in
anything. I heard that he had been recaptured through some black fellow
that had been his slave, but I did not r