"Yes, General, if I don't have to save the horse." "The horse may have to save you," drawled the Arkansan. "I think you know Lieutenant Durand?" asked the General, with a quizzical eye. "Slightly." "Well, Smith, on his suggestion approved by Major Harper, I have detailed another clerk to the Major." Rills of perspiration tickled my back like flies. "Can't one man do the work?" "Yes, the new man is detailed in your place." I almost leaped from the ground in consternation. My whole frame throbbed, my mouth fell open, my tongue was tied. The man who had got me into this thing--this barrel--lifted the tent-flap. "Mr. Gholson," said the General, "write an order assigning Smith to Ferry's scouts." The flap fell again and my panic was turned into a joy qualified only by a reduced esteem for my general as a judge of character. Old Dismukes rose. "Good-night. Shall I send this boy that Yankee's horse?" "Oh I was forgetting that; yes, do!" At the door the Colonel gave me a last look. "Good-night, Legs." I dared not retort, but I looked so hard at his paunch that the General smiled. Then he asked me if I knew where we were then camped, and I said we were on the Meadville and Fayette road, near Franklin, twenty miles southeast of Fayette and-- "That will do. Now, beyond Fayette, about seven miles north, there's a place--" "Clifton?" "Don't interrupt me, Smith. Yes, Clifton. You're not to reach there to-night--" "I can do it, General." "You can do as you're told; understand?" I understood. "The enemy are in Fayette to-night," he continued. "So when you get half-way to Fayette, just across Morgan's Creek, you'll take a dim fork on the right running north along the creek. Ever travel by the stars?" I began to tell how well I knew the stars, but he stopped me. "Yes; well, keep straight north till you strike the road running east and west between Fayette and Union Church. You'll find there a little polling-place called Wiggins. Turn west, toward Fayette, and on the north side of the main road, opposite the blacksmith's shop, you'll come to a small--" "I see." "What do you see?" His frown scared me to my finger-tips. "Why, I suppose I'm to find there a road down Cole's Creek to Clifton." "Smith, if you interrupt me again, sir, you'll find the road back to your regiment. Opposite that blacksmith's shop you'll see a white cottage. There's a young lady stopping there to-night, a stranger, a traveller. The old lady who lives there has taken her in at my request. See that the young lady gets this envelope. It's no great matter, merely a pass through our lines; but it's your ostensible business till you get there; understand?" I thought I did until I glanced at the superscription: Miss Coralie Rothvelt.