What remained of the right-hand column bore, to the soldiers, these surprising words, in sentences and parts of sentences:
"Local Happenings—Charleston—
R. E. Lee as General—Sherman at the War Office
"The controversy just concluded between the Couri
Mercury on the strategic merits of the two command
developed nothing new. The Sherman cam
ending at the city of Atlanta
ably discussed and with
justice to the dead comma
The great March to the Sea, b
More brilliant achievement
of the war and its
in another colum
South is satisfie
happy endin"
When Coleman and Philip caught the first glimpse of the scrap of paper, tattered and yellow, they believed it to be some fragment of the Blue Book which they themselves had discarded. The exposed surface was almost as free of print as if it had been treated with potash, and looked as insignificant as a dried leaf or a section of corn-husk. Bromley, on the other hand, had examined it more closely, and just as Coleman began to laugh at him, he put out his hand and removed the scrap of paper from the twig which held it fast; and as he turned it over to the light, he was nearly as much surprised as his companions.
The three were down on their knees in an instant, eagerly devouring the words of the head-lines; and Philip being on the right, it happened that his eyes were the first to fall on the name of General Sherman.
"'Sherman at the War Office'!" he cried. "What does that mean?"
"It means we have been deceived," said Coleman. "I—"
"Hurrah!" cried Philip, leaping up and dancing about until the rags of his tattered clothing fluttered in the sunlight. "Hurrah! Uncle Billy is alive! He never was killed at all! If that message was false, they were all false—all lies! lies! What fools we have been! We must leave the mountain to-morrow—to-night."
"We have been the victims of an infamous deception," exclaimed Lieutenant Coleman. "Let us go back to the house at once, and determine what is to be done."
Against this undue haste Bromley remonstrated feebly, for he himself was laboring under unusual excitement. His eyes were so dimmed by a suffusion of something very like tears—tears of anger—that he could read no further for the moment, and he put the paper carefully into his pocket, and picked up his torch and followed his comrades sulkily into the cavern.