“Why do you suspect this Miss Carryl and this man, Deal, when I’ve showed you how impossible it is that they could send out information?”
“Somehow,” she said quietly, “they do send it—if they are the only two people who have had passes, and who now are permitted to correspond.”
“But you saw the letters——”
“So did you, Colonel.”
“I did!” he said emphatically; “and there’s nothing dangerous in them. As for the peach pits——”
“Oh, I’ll take your word for them, too,” she said, laughing. “When is your post-rider due?”
“In a few minutes, now.”
She began to pace backward and forward, the smile still lightly etched on her lips. The officer watched her; puckers of disappointed anxiety creased his forehead; he bit at his pipestem, and thought of the Bucktails. Certainly Stuart would hear of their going; surely before the northern reënforcements arrived the gray riders would come thundering into Osage Court House. Fire, pillage, countless stores wasted, trains destroyed, miles of railroads rendered useless. What, in Heaven’s name, could his superiors be thinking of, to run such risk with one of the bases of supplies? Somewhere—somewhere, not far from corps headquarters, sat incompetency enthroned—gross negligence—under a pair of starred shoulder straps. And, musing bitterly, he thought he knew to whom those shoulder straps belonged.
“The damn fool!” he muttered, biting at his pipe.
“Colonel,” said the Messenger cheerily, “I am going to take the mail to the outposts to-day.”