The day before Christmas the boys lost a little time in following and pitying a small lot of prisoners who passed along the road by the gate. They were always pitying the prisoners and planning means to rescue them, for they had an idea that they suffered a terrible fate. Only one certain case had come to their knowledge. A young man had one day been carried by the Holly Hill gate on his way to the head-quarters of the officer in command of that portion of the lines, General Denby. He was in citizen's clothes, which were muddy and torn, and he was charged with being a spy. The guards with him looked grim. His face was white, and yet he was a fierce-looking young fellow, speaking scornfully to his guards. Bob and Ran returned to the house, full of excitement, and spent some time that night planning how they might rescue him. Their plan included no less than the capture of General Denby himself. Bob mapped it all out--how he would cross the creek, dodging the picket at the bridge, slip past the sentries, and walking into the farm-house where the General had his headquarters, would seize him and force him to write a release of the prisoner. The next morning, Ran, who had risen early to visit his hare-traps, rushed into his mother's room, white-faced and wide-eyed. "Oh! mamma!" he gasped, "they have hung him, just because he had on those clothes. Uncle Saunders heard all about it." Mrs. Stafford, though she was much moved herself, endeavored to explain to the boy that this was one of the laws of war, but Ran's mind was not able to comprehend the principles which imposed so cruel a sentence for what he deemed so harmless a fault. "It's that old General Denby!" he exclaimed, hotly. "Even his own soldiers say he works them to death. I wish somebody would capture him." This act and some other measures of severity gave General Denby a reputation for much harshness among the few old residents who yet remained at their homes within the lines, and the boys used to gaze at him furtively as he would ride by, grim and stern, followed by his staff. Yet there were those who said that General Denby's rigor was simply the result of a high standard of duty, and that at bottom he had a soft heart. The children, however, could never bear to think of him, and when he would pass along with his staff, as he sometimes did, while they were watching beside the road, and would look at them with something very like a smile in his eyes, they would turn their heads away for fear he would speak to them. V THE SPY The approach of Christmas was marked even in the Federal camps, and many a song and ringing laugh were heard around the camp-fires glowing along the hills and in the tents and little cabins used as winter-quarters, over the boxes which were pouring in from home.