Colonel Tremaine looked with incredulity and defiance in his eyes at Colonel Gratiot, who managed to banish all expression from his countenance. Colonel Tremaine, who had been standing, sat down heavily on a chair. Colonel Gratiot, with the shutter still ajar, watched, and in five minutes a dark figure moved across the lawn, picked up the letter, and ran off. And then, as if by magic, there were a hundred dark figures, men in blue uniforms, surrounding the house. Colonel Gratiot ran, as if he were sixteen instead of sixty, across the room, into the hall beyond. When he reached the front door, men were pounding on it, and their blows resounded through the house. The Colonel turned and sped toward the dining room, with its glass doors opening upon the long portico facing the river. The house was dark, but he made his way without difficulty. He opened the glass door, and there, lying out in the black river, his quick eye caught the outline of a small gunboat. Not a light was seen on her and no sound was heard except the swish of her wheels as she backed water to keep from drifting down the river. As the Colonel stepped out on the porch he was caught in the arms of a big sergeant, who handled him with one hand as if he were a baby, while with the other he fired a pistol in the air. Instantly rockets went up from the gunboat. Colonel Gratiot knew he was a prisoner and submitted with perfect composure. “Look here, my man,” he said pleasantly, “I have rheumatism in that left arm of mine. I can’t run away--there are too many of you; so loosen your grip, if you please.” “Excuse me, sir,” answered the sergeant, respectfully. “I know all about you, sir; and I know that you are hard to catch, and harder to keep.” “You flatter me,” said the Colonel, smiling; “you forget that I am sixty years old.” “No, I don’t, sir,” remarked the sergeant, with a grin, “but I don’t let you go until I hand you over to the lieutenant. Here he is now, sir, coming round the corner of the house. We thought you’d jumped out of the window on the stable side.” A young lieutenant came running around the corner of the house, and, springing up the steps of the portico two at a time, saluted and said: “Colonel Gratiot, I believe. You are my prisoner.” “I certainly am,” replied the Colonel, grimly, as the sergeant released him and saluted; then, looking round in the half-darkness over the numbers of dark soldiers in blue uniforms surrounding the house, and the gunboat puffing and grinding away in the river, he continued: “You took an immense deal of trouble to catch an old fellow like me.” “You are worth it, sir,” replied the lieutenant, smiling delightedly. “And we were out for big game this time.”