“And Stuart? You say he’s roaming around somewhere in touch with Sandy River?” she asked, pointing with a pencil to that metropolis on the map.
“The Lord knows where he is!” muttered the Colonel. “He may be a hundred miles south now, and in my back yard to-morrow by breakfast time. But when he’s watching us he’s usually near Sandy River.”
“I see. And these”—drawing her pencil in a wavering line—“are your outposts? I mean those pickets nearest Sandy River.”
“They are. Those are rifle pits.”
“A grand guard patrols this line?” she asked, rising to her feet.
“Yes; a company of cavalry and a field gun.”
“Do you issue passes?”
“Not to the inhabitants.”
“Have any people—civilians—asked for passes?”
“I had two applications; one from a Miss Carryl, who lives about a mile beyond here on the Sandy River Road; another from an old farmer, John Deal, who has a fruit and truck farm half a mile outside our lines. He wanted to come in with his produce and I let him for a while. But that leakage worried me, so I stopped him.”