Lieutenant Harris's hand went up to his hat in ready salute and he bellowed out his orders.
"Jennings! Hewlett! Brown! Hammond! Burt! 'Bout face. Forward!" Almost before the words were out of his mouth Harris and his men were riding madly down the road in a chase, which the Lieutenant suspected, meant something more to his colonel, than merely the recovery of a safe-conduct for a Confederate officer and a little girl.
Morrison turned to Trooper O'Connell and jerked his thumb towards the road.
"Report at my quarters this evening—at nine," he said curtly. And the young Irishman, thankful to be well out of the mess, quickly clambered over the wall and disappeared though not without a soft voiced farewell from Virgie.
"Good-by, Mr. Knapsack Man," called the child. "Thank you for the biscuits."
Then Cary came forward and gripped the other's hand.
"Colonel," he said earnestly, with full appreciation of what was passing through Morrison's mind, "I hope no trouble will come of this. If I had only known the vindictiveness of this man—"
He was interrupted by a genially objecting hand and a laugh which Morrison was somehow able to make lighthearted.
"Oh, that will be all right. Harris will get him—never fear."
"And so," he said, addressing Miss Virginia, "that bad man took your pass?"