"Oh! admirably. That party you saw was led by Price himself. He was in pursuit of an Indian. He left camp just as I arrived at his tent, and this gave me just the opportunity I desired. There was no person at the general's tent but an orderly, who became very familiar and communicative. He gave me the exact plan of their encampment, but it will be of little use, as Price takes up his line of march for Cassville to-morrow. But the most important document I possess is the plan of our own camp, containing not only my own description, but I suppose that of yours, and of all the generals, and other principal officers in our army." "How did you get possession of this document?" "It was brought to the tent of Price by his spies while he was absent. I learned from the orderly that the general did not know the existence of the paper, or that his spies had returned. So I worked upon the fears of the orderly, got possession of the paper, and his promise not to let Price know anything about it, and then ordered the men who brought it to be put in the guard-house and gagged. Of course I accused them of playing false to Price, and of being in reality Union spies." "Of course the trick will be discovered!" "Oh! certainly--and I suppose it is by this time, as one of the prisoners sent for Price, and he was to meet him at ten o'clock. For a short time they will be puzzled. The question will be asked the orderly, what he did with the papers, and he will answer that he gave them to me. But, when Price learns that it was me who ordered his spies under arrest, and gagged so that they could not speak, that I have the papers, that my story to him and the orderly did not agree, and that I am nowhere to be found, he will sea at once that he has been terribly sold, and know that I was a spy. If he describes my person, I will be at once recognized by one of the men whom I had placed under arrest, as the very man Price longed to get in his grasp!" "Why, what does Price know of you?" asked the adjutant. "Do you remember our second day's march from Tipton, that about four o'clock in the afternoon, I was stopping at a log-house, near a well, at the right of the road, and that while the person who appeared to be master of the house was helping me to a cup of water, you rode up and gave me a letter?" "Yes, I remember it perfectly well, and that you remarked the letter was from Mamie." "Exactly. And do you recollect the words I used about Price, to the man who gave me the water?" "I remember they were not very complimentary." "Well, the man who handed me that cup of water was Price himself!" "The devil! And did he not recognize you to-day?"