"Of course the trick will be discovered!"
"Oh! certainly—and I suppose it is by this time, as one of the prisoners sent for Price, and he was to meet him at ten o'clock. For a short time they will be puzzled. The question will be asked the orderly, what he did with the papers, and he will answer that he gave them to me. But, when Price learns that it was me who ordered his spies under arrest, and gagged so that they could not speak, that I have the papers, that my story to him and the orderly did not agree, and that I am nowhere to be found, he will sea at once that he has been terribly sold, and know that I was a spy. If he describes my person, I will be at once recognized by one of the men whom I had placed under arrest, as the very man Price longed to get in his grasp!"
"Why, what does Price know of you?" asked the adjutant.
"Do you remember our second day's march from Tipton, that about four o'clock in the afternoon, I was stopping at a log-house, near a well, at the right of the road, and that while the person who appeared to be master of the house was helping me to a cup of water, you rode up and gave me a letter?"
"Yes, I remember it perfectly well, and that you remarked the letter was from Mamie."
"Exactly. And do you recollect the words I used about Price, to the man who gave me the water?"
"I remember they were not very complimentary."
"Well, the man who handed me that cup of water was Price himself!"
"The devil! And did he not recognize you to-day?"
"No, for he spoke of Captain Hayward, and remarked that he had an account to settle with him, and had sent for his description, which he expected every moment. I had it in my pocket at the time, and those who took it were under arrest by my order. They would have recognized me in an instant if they had seen me. The reason that Price did not recognize me was, that when he saw me at the well, I was almost black with dust, and I took pains to-day to change the tone of my voice as much as possible."