to find you. Put on
your uniforms and take your guns." The men put on their coats, which
they had removed while at work, shouldered their muskets, and took their
places, two on each side of the prisoner. The officers then turned to
examine their prostrate comrade.

"It's all over with him," one said, stooping down; "the shovel has cut
his skull nearly in half. Well, I fancy he was a bad lot. I don't
believe in Southerners who come over to fight in our ranks; besides, he
was at one time in the rebel army."

"Yes, he was taken prisoner," another said. "Then his father, who had to
bolt from the South, because, he said, of his Northern sympathies, but
likely enough for something else, came round, made interest somehow and
got his son released, and then someone else got him a commission with
us. He always said he had been obliged to fight on the other side, but
that he had always been heart and soul for the North; anyhow, he was
always blackguarding his old friends. I always doubted the fellow. Well,
there's an end of him; and anyhow he has done useful service at last by
recognizing this spy. Fine-looking young fellow that! He called him
Vincent Wingfield. I seem to remember the name; perhaps I have read it
in some of the rebel newspapers we got hold of; likely enough someone
will know it. Well, I suppose we had better have Jackson carried into
camp."

Four more of the negroes were called out, and these carried the body
into the camp of his regiment. An officer was also sent from the
working party to report the capture of a spy to his colonel.

"I will report it to the general," the latter said; "he rode along here
about a quarter of an hour ago, and may not be back again for some
hours. As we have got the spy fast it cannot make any difference."

As he marched back to the village Vincent felt that there was no hope
for him whatever. He had been denounced as a spy, and, although the lips
that had denounced him had been silenced forever, the mischief had been
done. He could give no satisfactory account of himself. He thought for a
moment of declaring that a mistake had been made, but he felt that no
denial would counterbalance the effect of Jackson's words. The fury,
too, with which the latter had attacked him would show plainly enough
that his assailant was absolutely certain as to his identity, and even
that there had been a personal feud between them. Then he thought that
if he said that he was the son of the woman i