The Courier of the Ozarks

by Byron A. Dunn

"No; I did turn a little faint, but I am over it now. I will think over what you said."

He did think it over, and came to the conclusion that he must go; for, if he stayed, the time would come when he would have to confess his love for Grace. He trembled when he realized how near he had come to telling her. But it was not many hours before he was telling her.

A man came riding into the valley from the north. He was burning with fever, and reeled from side to side in his saddle. He was lifted from his horse, and carried into the house.

"I am afraid I am done for," he said, faintly, as he was gently placed on a bed. "I was told I would find a crippled Confederate soldier here, called Mark Grafton, who sometimes acts as the bearer of dispatches. Is he here now?"

"He is," answered Mr. Chittenden.

"I must see him—see him before it is too late. I feel the hand of Death upon me."

Mark was called, and the sick man, between gasps, told his story. He said his name was Paul Dupont, and he was the bearer of important dispatches to General Hindman. "I was sick at the time they asked me to carry them, and tried to beg off, but they said the dispatches were so important they could only be trusted to a brave and trusty man, and they knew I was one. 'Carry them as far as Judge Chittenden's, on the La Belle,' they said; 'then, if you are not able to go farther, deliver them into the hands of a crippled Confederate soldier there, by the name of Mark Grafton.' I can go no farther. The hand of Death is already on me. You will find the dispatches sewed in the lining of my coat. Take them and deliver them into the hands of General Hindman."

"To Hindman!" gasped Mark.

"Yes—don't fail!" whispered Dupont, as he sank back on his pillow, exhausted. He closed his eyes; his breath came shorter and shorter, and he soon passed away, without speaking again.

Mark stood as one confounded. A sacred trust had been committed to him—one that took him where he never wished to go—into Arkansas. No one except himself could realize the dangers that he would run.