When the mountain of the nineteenth red pin had said its say as any parrot might have done, for it was absolutely ignorant of the meaning of the figures it received and passed on (for the reason that it had no officer with the cipher), Lieutenant Coleman took from his pocket a slip of paper on which he had already arranged his return message to Chattanooga. When this had been despatched, the lieutenant took the note-book from Philip, and went away to his tent to cipher out the meaning of the still meaningless letters. They were sufficiently eager to get the latest news, for they knew that the army they had just left had been advancing its works and fighting daily since the twenty-second day of June for the possession of Kenesaw Mountain. The despatches were translated in the order in which they came, so that it was a good half-hour before Lieutenant Coleman appeared with a radiant face to say that General Sherman had taken possession of Kenesaw Mountain on the day before. "And that is not all," he cried, holding up his hand to restrain any premature outburst of enthusiasm. "Listen to this! 'The "Alabama" was sunk by the United States steamer "Kearsarge" on the nineteenth day of June, three miles outside the harbor of Cherbourg, on the coast of France.'" Corporal Bromley was not a demonstrative man, yet the blood rushed to his face, and there was a glittering light in his eyes which told how deeply the news touched him; but Philip, on the contrary, was wild with delight, and danced and cheered and turned somersaults on the grass. CHAPTER VI MESSAGES OF DIRE DISASTERS "What a pity," cried Philip, "that the boys on the next mountain should be left in ignorance of these victories when we could so easily send them the news without using the cipher--and this the Fourth of July, too!" That form of communication, however, was strictly forbidden by the severe rules of the service, and it was the fate of Number 19 to remain in the dark, like all the other stations on the line, except the first and tenth and their own, which alone were in charge of commissioned officers who held the secret of the cipher.