“When thinking can help,” answered Dad, “I suppose I do my share of it. But I don’t let it interfere with the orders given me.”
“Did you happen to think when you were told to ride across nearly forty miles of hostile country with these dispatches for me?” insisted the general, the same quizzical look in his half-shut eyes.
“Frankly, sir,” returned Dad, “I did. I remember that I thought—”
“Well?” urged Hooker impatiently. “Out with it, man! If it wasn’t complimentary to anyone in particular don’t be afraid to say so.”
“I thought, sir,” answered Dad, “that if those documents weren’t all-important it was strange that a man’s life or freedom should be risked in delivering them. And I thought if they were all-important there must be some safer and surer way of getting them to you than by sending that same man through a region where there was barely one chance in a dozen—in a score—of his being successful in reaching you.”
Hooker nodded approval.
“Good!” he vouchsafed. “And, wondering that, you still did all in your power to win through safely?”
“And you set out to obey them? Well, sergeant, you did not obey them.”
“The envelope—” began Dad.