An hour later a knot of newspaper correspondents, orderlies, stragglers, and servants clustered about the party as it rested in the starlight in front of an old Virginia homestead. On a bed in the rear room the surgeons had laid the wounded Confederate. In the main room, with two or three of his staff and half a dozen correspondents pencil-driving about him, sat the commanding general. Before him, silent and respectful, stood brown-eyed, long-legged Snipe. The camp lanterns burned brightly on mantel and table. The sound of many voices, low-toned but impatient, came from without. Something had blocked the road in front, and the march of the rear divisions was stayed. The general was vexed, as all could see,--impatient and indignant. But as he read the pencilled lines, handed him by the adjutant-general, something like pleasure shone on his florid, soldierly face. "You chose the right man, Burnside," he suddenly exclaimed, as he turned to a stalwart, heavily whiskered officer who entered at the moment, clad in a pleated flannel blouse, with heavy riding-boots and breeches. "Look at this," he added, handing up the brief despatch. "I wish I could inject as much sense into some--generals." Then he turned on Snipe, his stern face relaxing: "You have done admirably, my lad. How old are you?" For a moment the light went out of Lawton's eyes, giving way to trouble and embarrassment. He twisted his forage-cap in his trembling fingers. At last, huskily, but with reviving hope, he answered. "I told them I was eighteen. To-night I tried to prove I was as good as my word." A smile went round the room. The general beamed. "You answer well, sir, and you do well. Major Stark probably can't spare you or you should join my head-quarters' party and wear the chevrons of a sergeant. Look after this young gentleman, captain, and see that he has coffee and supper before he starts back," he said to one of his aides, who had been silently gazing at the orderly's face. "Your regiment's time expires next week. Perhaps you would like to come to me then. If so, there'll be a place for you, and meanwhile the home people will be proud when they read in Monday's papers how their boy captured the first rebel officer at Bull Run." And with these words ringing in his ears, the lad was marched away to a shed outside where aides and officers of every rank were snatching a hurried bite from a camp-table, and here he was regaled with sandwiches and coffee, and plied with questions by men whose pencils sped like mad over their pads of paper, and they noted instantly his embarrassment when they asked him about home and parents.