.
"Lieutenant Harris," he shouted. "Take a squad and ride to camp by the
wood road. Overtake Corporal Dudley or intercept him at headquarters.
Don't fail! Get him and bring him here!"

Lieutenant Harris's hand went up to his hat in ready salute and he
bellowed out his orders.

"Jennings! Hewlett! Brown! Hammond! Burt! 'Bout face. Forward!" Almost
before the words were out of his mouth Harris and his men were riding
madly down the road in a chase, which the Lieutenant suspected, meant
something more to his colonel, than merely the recovery of a
safe-conduct for a Confederate officer and a little girl.

Morrison turned to Trooper O'Connell and jerked his thumb towards the
road.

"Report at my quarters this evening--at nine," he said curtly. And the
young Irishman, thankful to be well out of the mess, quickly clambered
over the wall and disappeared though not without a soft voiced farewell
from Virgie.

"Good-by, Mr. Knapsack Man," called the child. "Thank you for the
biscuits."

Then Cary came forward and gripped the other's hand.

"Colonel," he said earnestly, with full appreciation of what was passing
through Morrison's mind, "I hope no trouble will come of this. If I had
only known the vindictiveness of this man--"

He was interrupted by a genially objecting hand and a laugh which
Morrison was somehow able to make lighthearted.

"Oh, that will be all right. Harris will get him--never fear."

"And so," he said, addressing Miss Virginia, "that bad man took your
pass?"

"Yes, sir. He did," Virgie answered, and caught his hand in hers. "He
ran right away with it--mean old thing."

"Well, then--we'll have to write you out another one. A nice, clean,
white one this time. Come on, little sweetheart. We'll do it together,"
and he took out a note book and pencil.

"I say, Morrison," Cary murmured, glancing apprehensively at the
troopers idling in the road and very plainly interested in what the
small group were doing, "do you really think you'd better--on your own
account?"

Again Morrison's hand was raised in polite objection. He had taken a
sporting chance when he wrote the pass which had been stolen but because
he had probably lost was no reason why he shouldn't play the game out
bravely to the end. So he only smiled at Virgie, who came and sat beside
him, and began to write the few short sentences of his second
safe-conduct. But while he wrote he was talking in low tones which the
troopers in the road co