No sooner did the sharp challenge ring out than, as if at a signal for which they had been waiting, the two boys burst into wild, panic-stricken yells: ‘The Rebs! the Rebs! They’re on us! The pickets are driven in!’ Shouting which they charged madly down upon the sentry who had challenged them. Seeing, as he supposed, two Federal sentries in full flight, the man never doubted for a moment that the alarm was genuine, and discharging his rifle in the air, set off as hard as his legs could carry him through the belt of trees towards the fields, beyond which lay the camp. And now all along the river bank the cry was taken up, ‘The Rebs! the Rebs!’ and everywhere could be heard the sound of feet crashing through the undergrowth, as the pickets bolted in upon their supports. Bursting with laughter, Ephraim and Lucius watched the disappearance of the man immediately in their front; but the sharp call of a bugle and the noise of the long roll upon the drums, as the Federal regiments sprang to arms in anticipation of the threatened attack, warned them that there was no time to lose, and they continued their race down the bank. ‘There’s the boat!’ panted Lucius, after a few minutes. ‘I see her nose just peeping out.’ ‘Down in the underbrush, then!’ said Ephraim sharply, ‘and don’t git up unless I call ye, or ye see thar’s need.’ ‘What are you going to do?’ asked Lucius, obeying the order. ‘Give ’em a taste of their own sauce, I reckon! Hush! Hyar he comes. Lie low!’ He flung himself in front of Lucius, with his rifle at the port, and waited. Hurrying footsteps drew nearer. Some one was coming on at express speed. Ephraim gripped his rifle tight, and set his teeth. Swish! The bushes parted, and the civilian stood before him. ‘Halt!’ shouted the Grizzly, bringing his bayoneted rifle down to the charge. ‘Halt! Who comes thar?’ [Illustration] CHAPTER X. HOW THAT DESPATCH WAS INTERCEPTED. ‘Halt! Who comes thar?’ repeated Ephraim, as the civilian paused, regarding him with an expression of supreme astonishment. There was reason for the stranger’s amazement. He had moored his boat well above the chain of sentries—a good quarter of a mile, indeed—for no attack could be expected from the river, and naturally none could come from the north below Lewiston, and therefore only the sentries whom Ephraim and Lucius had scared had been posted in the former place, and none at all in the latter. Consequently the civilian was puzzled. His first thought was, that he had struck a point too low down for his boat; his second, that he remembered every detail of the appearance of the spot, and that he could not possibly be mistaken. However, when, for the third time, the peremptory challenge sounded in his ears, he put as good a face as he could upon the matter, and answered distinctly and with confidence, ‘Friend!’