But the rattle and roar were at hand, and the sense of a thousand horsemen about to charge into the small of his back. He thought, "I'll be searched in a minute," swept a handful of sand over the paper, clambered up the bank and sat on the burned turf above, hugging his angular knees. The head horseman pulled to the right and shouted. "Follow 'em half a mile, Cary, and wait there." The bulk of the squadron swept on. "Search that man, you there! Pull that paper out of the sand." Mavering groaned disgustedly. Two men were up the bank, feeling him all over with skilled precision. The colonel pulled his chin-whisker over the mysterious writing. "What's all this?" Mavering sat down again and brushed the sand from his trousers and long black coat-tails. His hat lay in the ditch. The troop remaining gathered in a semicircle, the colonel and Mavering in the centre, with ditch and the prostrate kicking horse between, practicable scenery of a September sky and burned woods around. "I don't know, colonel," said Mavering, in solemn and rhythmic bass, "but I judge it's a job put up on you by the recondite and taciturn captain of the troop lately departed. He appeared to drop it with a policy and plugged at me with a revolver when I picked it up." "You hid it, sir"--sharply. "So I did. The truth is ever beautiful. He plugged my horse. Supposing he meant that for you, I'm not backing his game to-day. It's too deep for me, anyhow." A young officer broke in at the colonel's elbow. "Dunker? We passed that man Monday up by the river, colonel. He was scattering tracts." "Did? Here, then--Martinsburg, or further up! Go hard. Now, then, who are you?" "Correspondent. You've got my credentials with the rest of the loot, of which you might lend me a dollar and a half and return the note-book containing a half-written but masterly article on--" "Note-book? Article? Very good. Do for a Richmond paper. Credentials? Where--Oh!" "Sign it J.R. Mavering, and tell 'em the price is forty dollars." The colonel was a small man, high-voiced, quick-eyed, but not without a certain cheerfulness. He glanced up from the papers with an appreciative twinkle. The men slouched easily in their saddles. The horses stamped and shifted. "Here! Give these back to him." "Don't we take him, colonel?" "No. What for? Give him back everything. All ready! Forward! Wait!" He pulled up suddenly. "Mr. Mavering." The little colonel was dignified. Mavering pocketed his property calmly, as if in the common flux of things, the flowing change of time, scene, and event, it was not strange, whatever went and came, or however suddenly. Anyway, this world was a fleeting show, an incessant comedy without plot. "Sir." "Such Northern newspapers as yours, which have--in the past, at least--been inclined to criticise the unprovoked invasion of Virginia, it is desired by the authorities that such newspapers should be treated with consideration. You follow me, sir?"