"The prisoner up there made an awful rumpus. He declares he will ruin the whole state of North Carolina for this. Here is his card, which, in a comparatively lucid interval, he gave me to hand you at the earliest possible moment," and Captain Webb placed a visiting card in Ardmore's hands. A smile struggled for possession of Ardmore's countenance, but he regained control of himself promptly, and his face grew severe. He gave the card to Jerry, who handed it to Mrs. Atchison, and that lady laughed merrily. "Your prisoner, Captain Webb, is George P. Billings, secretary of the Bronx Loan and Trust Company of New York. What was he doing when you seized him?" demanded Ardmore. "He was chasing the gentleman who's resting on the anthracite. He chased him and chased him, around a tea-house out here somewhere on the place; and finally this person in the coal hole fell, and they both rolled over together. The gentleman in the coal hole declares that he's Foster, the state treasurer of North Carolina, but his face got so scratched on the shrubbery that he doesn't look in the least like Mr. Foster." "I have sent him witch hazel and court plaster, and we can get a doctor for his wounds, if necessary," said Mrs. Atchison. A sergeant rushed up in hot haste with a demand from Colonel Daubenspeck, of the North Carolina First, to know when Governor Dangerfield could be seen. "The South Carolina pickets have been withdrawn, and our officers want orders from the governor in person," said the messenger. "Then they shall have orders!" roared Ardmore. "If our men dare abandon their outposts--" He turned and rode furiously toward the border, and in his rage he had traversed a thousand yards before he saw that Jerry was close behind him. As they passed the red bungalow the crack of scattering rifle-shots reached them. "Go back! Go back! The war's begun!" cried Ardmore; but, though he quickened the pace of his horse, Jerry clung to his side. "If there's war, and I hope there is, I shall not shrink from the firing line, Mr. Ardmore." As they dashed into their own lines they came upon the regimental officers, seated in comfortable chairs from the red bungalow, calmly engaged in a game of cards. "Great God, men!" blurted Ardmore, "why do you sit here when the state's honor is threatened? Where was that firing?" "You seem rather placid, gentlemen, to say the least," added Jerry, coldly bowing to the officers, who had risen at her approach. "Unless I am greatly mistaken, that is the flag of South Carolina I see flaunted in yonder field." And she pointed with a gauntleted hand to a palmetto flag beyond the creek. "It is, Miss Dangerfield," replied the colonel politely, "and you can see their pickets occasionally, but they have been drawn back from the creek, and I apprehend no immediate advance."