"Ah, dear Tom," exclaimed Dunwoodie, "I knew I should find you the nearest man to the enemy!"
"No," said the lieutenant. "There is a brave fellow nearer than myself. He rushed out of our smoke to make a prisoner, and he never came back. He lies just over the hillock."
Dunwoodie went to the spot and found an aged stranger. He lay on his back, his eyes closed as if in slumber, and his hands pressed on his breast contained something that glittered like silver.
The subject of his care was a tin box, through which the bullet had pierced to find a way to his heart, and the dying moments of the old man must have been passed in drawing it from his bosom.
Dunwoodie opened it, and found a paper on which he read:
"Circumstances of political importance, which involve the lives and fortunes of many, have hitherto kept secret what this paper reveals. Harvey Birch has for years been a faithful and unrequited servant of his country. Though man does not, may God reward him for his conduct! GEO. WASHINGTON."
It was the spy of the neutral ground, who died as he had lived, devoted to his country.