But to Canker’s dismay the officer of the guard made prompt report. The sentry was sent, but the sergeant’s tent was empty. The colonel’s pet had flown. This meant more trouble for the colonel.
Meantime Stanley Armstrong had hied him to General Drayton’s headquarters. The office tents were well filled with clerks, orderlies, aides and other officers who had come in on business, but this meeting was by appointment, and after brief delay the camp commander excused himself to those present and ushered Armstrong into his own private tent, the scene of the merry festivities the evening of Mrs. Garrison’s unexpected arrival. There the General turned quickly on his visitor with the low-toned question:
“Well—what have you found?”
“Enough to give me strong reason for believing that Morton, so-called, is young Prime, and that your nephew is with him, sir.”
The old soldier’s sad eyes lighted with sudden hope. Yet, as he passed his hand wearily over his forehead, the look of doubt and uncertainty slowly returned. “It accounts for the letters reaching me here,” he said, “but—I’ve known that boy from babyhood, Armstrong, and a more intense nature I have never heard of. What he starts in to do he will carry out if it kills him.” And Drayton looked drearily about the tent as though in search of something, he didn’t quite know what. Then he settled back slowly into his favorite old chair. “Do sit down, Armstrong. I want to speak with you a moment.” Yet it was the colonel who was the first to break the silence.
“May I ask if you have had time to look at any of the letters, sir?”
“Do I look as though I had time to do any-thing?” said the chief, dropping his hands and uplifting a lined and haggard face, yet so refined. “Anything but work, work, morn, noon and night. The mass of detail one has to meet here is something appalling. It weighs on me like a nightmare, Armstrong. No, I was worn out the night after the package reached me. When next I sought it the letters were gone.”
“How long was that, General?”
Again the weary hands, with their long, tapering fingers, came up to the old soldier’s brow. He pondered a moment. “It must have been the next afternoon, I think, but I can’t be sure.”
“And you had left them——?”