"What were you doing outside the lines?" interrupted the colonel. "I was foraging." "Was any one with you?" "Yes, sir. Dennis O'Hara." "Ah, ha! Then the story is true that you both were outside the lines?" "Yes, sir! that's true, although it isn't true that we deserted." "To what regiment do you belong?" "To the --th." "To which company?" Noel gave the number of his company. "Who was your colonel?" "Colonel Crawford." "That's correct," said the officer. "All these things tally. I have a statement here that you and--your name is Noel Curtis, is it not?" "Yes, sir." "Well, I have a statement here that Noel Curtis and Dennis O'Hara, both belonging to Company ---- of the --th regiment deserted just before the attack on Harper's Ferry." "Colonel, may I ask you who made that statement?" "The sutler is the one who informed us." "Did any one else tell you?" "I think so. I haven't all the papers here and I have no time to go into details about this. Have you served long?" "We enlisted last spring, my brother and I. We were both in the Peninsula campaign. My brother was sick and went home on a furlough." "Where is your home?" "In New York State, on the border of the St. Lawrence River. My brother and I were both sharpshooters." The colonel smiled incredulously as he looked at the young soldier, but all he said in reply was, "I have nothing but your unsupported word for this, while I have the testimony of others against you. The fact that you were outside the lines at Harper's Ferry is against you, and it's just about as black when Captain Blowers reports that he was informed by reliable witnesses that you are a deserter and were seen several times skulking about the region. We are compelled to make examples of these men right now, or we shan't have anybody left to stand against Lee. You'll have to find better reasons for convincing me than you have given this afternoon." "Will you make some investigations, Colonel?" "No, not now. There is no time. Do you hear those guns?" he demanded as the roar of distant cannon was heard. "We may be ordered to advance at any time. Meanwhile I must give my men a good lesson, and I cannot do it in a better way than by making an example of such men as you." "Don't you believe what I have told you?" "I don't," said the colonel tartly. "Your story is just about as plausible as the one young Naylor told me before I had him hanged." Noel's face became pale as he heard the statement lightly repeated by the colonel that some one had been hanged that very day for desertion. He was aware, however, from the attitude of the officer and the abrupt manner in which he turned again to his writing that there was little use in trying further to plead his cause. Turning about, Noel, still under the guard of the orderly, left the tent and was conducted back to the place where he had been confined with his companions. CHAPTER XXV THE EXECUTION