“Is here. With its contents undisturbed. But it doesn’t belong here. By this time it ought to be in Jackson’s hands. Perhaps even in Lee’s. You still do not understand?”
Dad essayed to speak; then hesitated.
“You set down your general for a fool,” insisted Hooker. “Don’t deny it, man. Well, he isn’t one. He hit on a wise scheme. The scheme he proposed to me last week and which had my endorsement. These papers were carefully made out—lists, maps, directions, and all. For the exclusive benefit of—Jackson and Lee.
“Do some more thinking for a moment and then see if you can’t guess the riddle.”
Dad had forestalled the command. Already his brain was hot on a trail of conjecture. He recalled what his general had said of the chances against the mission’s success, and of the unaccustomed care that same general had taken in warning him to lose liberty rather than life should danger threaten.
He fell to rehearsing what General Hooker had first said. And, bit by bit, the truth came to him.
“You begin to understand?” asked General Hooker, reading his every expression.
“I hope, sir,” returned Dad stiffly, his color rising, “that I am mistaken in supposing that my commanding officer sent me into the enemy’s country, expecting me to be captured. He said the chances against my reaching you were ten to one, and even worse. But—”
“Ten to one?” mocked Hooker. “A hundred to one—that’s how much worse—a thousand to one. Humanly speaking, there was no chance that a Federal courier—least of all a mounted courier—could get through. For forty miles the whole country is alive with Confederates. A trained spy might have hoped to do it; yes. In disguise and on foot and with three days to make the trip. But a mounted man in uniform, with instructions to hurry—there was no chance. Such a man could not possibly have avoided capture. Yet you did.”
“The dispatches, then, that I have just now handed you—”