There is a sudden knock at the door—a negro waiter with a telegram:
"Point of Rocks, MD., Oct. —, 1862.
"Major Paul R. Abbot,
Willard's Hotel, Washington:
"Hollins still missing; believed to have followed you to Washington. Use every effort to secure arrest.
"Putnam."
"Back come those daredevils of Stuart's."
VII.
There is an air of unusual excitement about the War Department this bright October day. It is only a month since the whole army seemed tramping through the streets on its way to the field of the Antietam; only three weeks since the news was received that Lee was beaten back across the Potomac, and every one expected that McClellan would be hot on his trail, eager to pursue and punish before the daring Southerners could receive accessions. But though two corps managed to reoccupy Harper's Ferry and there go into camp, the bulk of the army has remained where Lee left it when he slipped from its grasp, and McClellan's cry is for reinforcements. Three weeks of precious time slip by, and then—back come those daredevils of Stuart's, riding with laugh and taunt and jeer all around the Union forces; and there is the mischief to pay here in Washington, for if he should take a notion to pay the capital a visit on his homeward trip, what would the consequences be? Of course there are troops—lots of them—all around in the fortifications. The trouble is, that we have so few cavalry, and, after all, the greatest trouble is the old one—those fellows, Stuart and Jackson, have such a consummate faculty of making a very little go a great way. All that is known of Stuart's present move is, that he is somewhere up the Cumberland Valley; that telegraphic communication beyond McClellan's headquarters is broken, and that it is more than likely he will come hitherwards when he chooses to make his next start.