Twenty-seven miles to go and less than three hours before sunrise. There was a race yet for the life of Daniel Dean. The gallant little mare could cover the stretch with nearly an hour to spare, and Chad, thrilled in every nerve, but with calm confidence, raced against the coming dawn.
"The wires are cut."
Who had cut them and where and when and why? No matter—Chad had the paper in his pocket that would save two lives and he would be on time even if Dixie broke her noble heart, but he could not get the words out of his brain—even Dixie's hoofs beat them out ceaselessly:
"The wires are cut—the wires are cut!"
The mystery would have been clear, had Chad known the message that lay on the Commandant's desk back at the Capital, for the boy knew Morgan, and that Morgan's lips never opened for an idle threat. He would have ridden just as hard, had he known, but a different purpose would have been his.
An hour more and there was still no light in the East. An hour more and one red streak had shot upward; then ahead of him gleamed a picket fire—a fire that seemed farther from town than any post he had seen on his way down to the Capital—but he galloped on. Within fifty yards a cry came:
"Halt! Who comes there?"
"Friend," he shouted, reining in. A bullet whizzed past his head as he pulled up outside the edge of the fire and Chad shouted indignantly:
"Don't shoot, you fool! I have a message for General Ward!"