Then, as luck would have it, late in the day, when the mail came down from Prescott, there was a little package for Captain Wren, expressed, and Doty signed the receipt and sent it by the orderly. "What was it?" asked Plume. "His watch, sir," was the brief answer. "He sent it up last month for repairs." And Mrs. Plume at nine that night, knowing nothing of this, yet surprised at her husband's pertinacity, stuck to her story. She was sure Wren was consulting or winding or doing something with a watch, and, sorely perplexed and marveling much at the reticence of his company commanders, who seemed to know something they would not speak of, Wren sent for Doty. He had decided on another interview with Wren. Meanwhile "the Bugologist" had been lying patiently in his cot, saying little or nothing, in obedience to the doctor's orders, but thinking who knows what. Duane and Doty occasionally tiptoed in to glance inquiry at the fanning attendant, and then tiptoed out. Mullins had been growing worse and was a very sick man. Downs, the wretch, was painfully, ruefully, remorsefully sobered over at the post of the guard, and of Graham's feminine patients the one most in need, perhaps, of his ministration was giving the least trouble. While Aunt Janet paced restlessly about the lower floor, stopping occasionally to listen at the portal of her brother, Angela Wren lay silent and only sometimes sighing, with faithful Kate Sanders reading in low tone by the bedside. The captains had gone back to their quarters, conferring in subdued voices. Plume, with his unhappy young adjutant, was seated on the veranda, striving to frame his message to Wren, when the crack of a whip, the crunching of hoofs and wheels, sounded at the north end of the row, and down at swift trot came a spanking, four-mule team and Concord wagon. It meant but one thing, the arrival of the general's staff inspector straight from Prescott.