Haines laughingly replied: “I am sorry to disappoint you; but as I captured my enemy’s horse and he fled on foot, I cannot admit defeat.”
“Then your enemy was a solitary knight?” queried Miss Osborne.
“Yes, but to all appearances a most gallant one.”
“Strange,” she mused, “who he could be, and what he could be doing in this section. The place for true knights, at this time, is at Corinth.”
“From letters captured with his horse, I take it he was from Corinth,” said Haines. “From those letters we learned that his name was Calhoun Pennington, that he was a lieutenant in the command of Captain John H. Morgan, a gentleman who has given us considerable trouble, and may give us more, and that he was on his way back to Kentucky to recruit for Morgan’s command.”
“You say you captured letters?” queried the girl.
“Yes, a whole package of them. They were from members of Morgan’s command to their friends back in Kentucky. The boys are having rare fun reading them.”
“I suppose it is according to military usages to read all communications captured from the enemy,” [pg 42]remarked Miss Osborne with a slight tinge of sarcasm in her tone, “but it seems sacrilege that these private letters should fall into profane hands.”
“Some of them were rich,” laughed Haines; “they were written by loving swains to their girls. There were others written to wives and mothers, which almost brought tears to our eyes, they were so full of yearnings for home.”
“Lieutenant, there was nothing in those letters of value to you from a military standpoint, was there?” suddenly asked Miss Osborne.