Back again through the starlit night, through dew-dripping aisles of shrubbery, through dark, leafy groves, with the glint of the picket's rifle ever before his eyes, the cautious yet excited challenge falling constantly upon his alert ear, time and again had Snipe to dismount and account for himself before he reached the outposts along the pathway to the north, and finally, after finding its junction with the wood road along which Upton had led the battalion at dusk, the lad came upon officers and sentries who were obdurate. Oh, yes; they believed him to be the young feller that twice had gone through the lines, once with the major and Lieutenant Upton and once with prisoners; but now he was alone, and how'd they know he wasn't going with information to the enemy, or going to be a deserter? Snipe argued and pleaded. Major Stark was waiting for him away out toward Sudley Ford. General McDowell himself and General Burnside told him he might rejoin his command. Then why didn't they give him a pass through the lines? was the question. The countersign didn't amount to shucks out along the pickets, said they. Anybody could get the countersign,--which wasn't altogether an exaggeration,--and, well, he might be all right, and then again he might be all wrong. It was now nearly two o'clock, the hour Upton said they might expect the head of column at the farm bridge, and Snipe, whose heart was full of glory and elation an hour before, found himself compelled either to wait there or retrace his weary way past all those inner posts again to the now crowded turnpike.