there is the mischief to pay here in
Washington, for if he should take a notion to pay the capital a visit on
his homeward trip, what would the consequences be? Of course there
are troops--lots of them--all around in the fortifications. The trouble
is, that we have so few cavalry, and, after all, the greatest trouble is
the old one--those fellows, Stuart and Jackson, have such a consummate
faculty of making a very little go a great way. All that is known of
Stuart's present move is, that he is somewhere up the Cumberland Valley;
that telegraphic communication beyond McClellan's headquarters is
broken, and that it is more than likely he will come hitherwards when he
chooses to make his next start.

[Illustration: "_Back come those daredevils of Stuart's._"]

Going to the War Department to make inquiries for the provost-marshal,
and show him Putnam's telegram, Major Abbot finds that official too busy
to see him, "unless it be something urgent," says the subaltern, who
seems to be an aide-de-camp of some kind.

"I have come to show him a despatch received last night--late--from
Point of Rocks."

"You are Major Abbot, formerly--th Massachusetts, I believe, and your
despatch is about the missing quartermaster, is it not?"

"Yes," replies Abbot, in surprise.

"We have the duplicate of the despatch here," says the young officer,
smiling. "You would know Hollins at once, would you not?"

"Yes, anywhere, I think."

"One of the secret-service men will come in to see you this morning if
you will kindly remain at your room until eleven or twelve o'clock.
Pardon me, major, you saw this Doctor Warren at Frederick, did you not?"

"Yes. The evening he came out to the field hospital."

"Did he impress you as a man who told a perfectly straight story, and
properly accounted for himself?"

"Why--You put it in a way that never occurred to me before," says the
major, in bewilderment. "Do you mean that there was anything wrong about
him?"

"Strictly _entre nous_, major--something damnably wrong. He was all
mixed up on meeting you, we are told. He claimed to have known and been
in correspondence with you, did he not?"

"Yes; he did. But--"

"That is only one of several trips he made. There are extraordinary
rumors coming in about spies around Frederick, and there seems to be an
organized gang. It is this very matter the general is overhauling now,
and he gave orders that he should be uninterrupted until he had finished
the c