genuine powers, and their reporters are men to be reckoned with.
Gideon Spilett ranked among the first of those reporters: a man of great
merit, energetic, prompt and ready for anything, full of ideas, having
traveled over the whole world, soldier and artist, enthusiastic in
council, resolute in action, caring neither for trouble, fatigue, nor
danger, when in pursuit of information, for himself first, and then for
his journal, a perfect treasury of knowledge on all sorts of curious
subjects, of the unpublished, of the unknown, and of the impossible. He
was one of those intrepid observers who write under fire, "reporting"
among bullets, and to whom every danger is welcome.

He also had been in all the battles, in the first rank, revolver in one
hand, note-book in the other; grape-shot never made his pencil tremble.
He did not fatigue the wires with incessant telegrams, like those who
speak when they have nothing to say, but each of his notes, short,
decisive, and clear, threw light on some important point. Besides, he
was not wanting in humor. It was he who, after the affair of the Black
River, determined at any cost to keep his place at the wicket of the
telegraph office, and after having announced to his journal the result
of the battle, telegraphed for two hours the first chapters of the
Bible. It cost the New York Herald two thousand dollars, but the New
York Herald published the first intelligence.

Gideon Spilett was tall. He was rather more than forty years of age.
Light whiskers bordering on red surrounded his face. His eye was steady,
lively, rapid in its changes. It was the eye of a man accustomed to take
in at a glance all the details of a scene. Well built, he was inured to
all climates, like a bar of steel hardened in cold water.

For ten years Gideon Spilett had been the reporter of the New York
Herald, which he enriched by his letters and drawings, for he was as
skilful in the use of the pencil as of the pen. When he was captured,
he was in the act of making a description and sketch of the battle. The
last words in his note-book were these: "A Southern rifleman has just
taken aim at me, but--" The Southerner notwithstanding missed Gideon
Spilett, who, with his usual fortune, came out of this affair without a
scratch.

Cyrus Harding and Gideon Spilett, who did not know each other except
by reputation, had both been carried to Richmond. The engineer's
wounds rapidly healed, and it was during his convales