General Shields thought for a moment. Then he said brusquely: ‘Thank you. I do not think there is any more to be said. If you have finished your breakfast, you will oblige me by joining the remains of your command, which you will find some two miles to the rear of Lewiston.’ Spriggs rose and saluted. ‘General,’ he said, ‘I do not like to admit myself beaten. The woods are full of our men, and it is well-nigh impossible that those two spies should have passed our pickets. With your permission I will take half a company and thoroughly beat the woods. As likely as not I shall run them down.’ ‘Certainly, colonel, you have my full permission,’ answered General Shields with great alacrity. ‘You have probably heard,’ he added, with curling lip, ‘that an advance on Port Republic is just now in progress. But I will not allow a little thing like that to interfere with your laudable desire to volunteer for a dangerous service.’ Colonel Spriggs bit his lip, and down went another black mark against General Shields. But his desire for revenge, and a chance to exhibit his petty tyranny, assisted him to accept the snub in silence, and he simply replied: ‘I am obliged to you, sir. I will start as soon as possible.’ ‘By the way, what did you do with the balloon?’ inquired Shields. ‘Left it where it was,’ answered the colonel. ‘I could not very well do otherwise.’ ‘Hm!’ said Shields. ‘Well, I’ll see about it later. Good-morning, sir.’ Spriggs saluted again, but at the door he turned. ‘I suppose, general,’ he inquired, ‘that if I come up with those two spies, you give me full discretionary powers?’ General Shields, who was already deep in thought, heard the question without grasping its significance, and muttered absently, ‘Yes, oh yes, of course,’ whereupon Spriggs immediately left the hut. Three or four minutes later, the general, coming out of his reverie, and having still the sound of the question in his ears, exclaimed suddenly: ‘Discretionary powers! What do you mean by that?’ ‘It is very evident,’ answered the brigadier. ‘And you have given him full permission to hang the two fellows out of hand.’ ‘Confound the man!’ muttered the general, walking quickly to the door. But Spriggs was already out of sight. ‘Well,’ he said, returning, ‘it does not matter much, for after all they are spies, and it is a hundred to one that he never finds them.’ To the two listeners in the loft it mattered a good deal, but unfortunately their position made protest out of the question. ‘The sight of that red-faced bully always sets my right foot tingling, so great is my desire to kick him,’ went on the general, irritably. ‘His incompetence is on a par with his cowardice. Imagine now his allowing those two men to escape.’