ving. "You've a tired horse,
though, lieutenant!" said the aide. "Strain as you may, I'll catch you
up!" His own horse devoured the ground, steadily galloping by the frosty
fields, through the air of earliest dawn. Suddenly, before him, the
courier from Kelly halted. Mounted against a faint light in the
southwestern sky, he stood upon the hilltop and waited for the horseman
from Frederick. The latter took at a gallop the remainder of the level
road, but at the foot of the hill changed to a trot. Above him, the
waiting horseman grew life-size. He waited, very quietly, Marchmont
observed, sitting, turned in his saddle, against the sky of dawn.
"Damned if I know if you're truly blue or grey!" thought the aide. "Did
you stop to disarm suspicion, because you saw you'd be overtaken--"

Another minute and the two were in speaking distance; another, and they
were together on the hilltop. "Good-morning!" said McNeill. "What haste
to Williamsport?" He bent forward in the light that was just strong
enough to see by. "Why--It is yesterday's comrade! Good-morning, Captain
Marchmont!"

"We must have started," said Marchmont, "somewhere near the same hour. I
have a communication from General Banks for the commander at
Williamsport."

If the other raised his brows over the aide's acting courier twice in
twenty-four hours, the action did not appear in the yet uncertain light.
Apparently McNeill took the statement easily, upon its face value. "In
that case," he said with amicableness, "I shall have the pleasure of
your company a little longer. We must be about six miles out, I should
think."

"About that distance," agreed the other. "And as at this unearthly hour
I certainly cannot see the colonel, and as your horse is evidently
spent, why go the rest of the way at a gallop?"

"It was my idea," said McNeill, "to pass the river early. If I can gain
the big woods before the day is old, so much the better. Dandy is tired,
it is true, but he has a certain staying quality. However, we will go
more slowly now."

They put themselves in motion. "Two men are behind us," remarked the man
from Romney.

"Yes. There they come through the fields. Two troopers who are riding
with me--Regulars. They'll accommodate their pace to ours."

"Very good," said the other with serenity, and the two rode on,
Marchmont's men a little way behind. By now the stars had faded, the
moon looked wan, there was a faint rose in the east. Far in a vale to
the lef