The pursuers bent gamely to their task in the rough road, with Cooke slightly in the lead. Suddenly he shouted warningly to the others, as something rose darkly above them like a black cloud, and a trunk fell with a mighty crash only a few feet ahead of them. The top had been shaken off in the fall, and into it head first plunged Ardmore. "There's another coming!" yelled Collins, and a much larger trunk struck and split upon a rock at the roadside. Clothing of many kinds strewed the highway. A pair of trousers, flung fiercely into the air, caught on the limb of a tree, shook free like a banner, and hung there somberly etched against the stars. Ardmore crawled out of the trunk, screaming with delight. The fragrance of toilet water broke freshly upon the air. "It's his ammunition!" bawled Ardmore, rubbing his head where he had struck the edge of a tray. "His scent bottles are smashed, and it's only by the grace of Providence that I haven't cut myself on broken glass." "Thump! Bump!" sounded down the road. "Are those pants up there?" asked Cooke, pointing, "or is it a hole in the sky?" "This," said Collins, picking up a garment from the bush over which it had spread itself, "has every appearance of being his little nightie. How indelicate!" "No," said Ardmore, taking it from him, "it's a kimona of the most expensive silk, which the colonel undoubtedly wears when they get him up at midnight to hear the reports of his scouts." They went down the road, stumbling now and then over a bit of debris from the vanished wagon. "It's like walking on carpet," observed Cooke, picking up a feathered chapeau. "I didn't know there were so many clothes in all the world." They abandoned the idea of farther pursuit on reaching a trunk standing on end, from which a uniform dress-coat drooped sadly. "This is not our trouble; it's his trouble. I guess he's struck a smoother road down there. We'd better go back," said Cooke. "Whom the gods would destroy they first dress in glad rags," piped Collins. They sat down and laughed until the negro approached warily with the horses. "He's lost his raiment, but saved his life," sputtered Collins, climbing into his saddle. "He's lost more than that," remarked Ardmore, and his flushed countenance, noted by the others as he lighted a cigarette, was cheerfuller than they had ever seen it before. In a moment they had climbed the hill and were in hot pursuit of the adjutant-general's abandoned army. CHAPTER XVII ON THE ROAD TO TURNER'S "Who goes there?" "A jug." "What kind of a jug?" "A little brown jug from Kildare."