“Yes, I was,” he said simply. “That’s why I acted so rough with you.... I didn’t know; they say any woman you see may be the Special Messenger.... So I took no chances.... Who are you, anyway?”
“Only a friend of yours,” she said, smiling. “Please pick up my kitten. Thank you.... And some day, when you’ve been very, very good, I’ll ask Colonel Kay to let you take me fishing.”
And she stepped lightly ashore; the boy followed, holding the kitten under one arm and drying his grimy eyes on his sleeve.
CHAPTER VI. AN AIR-LINE
“As for me,” continued Colonel Gay bitterly, “I’m driven almost frantic by this conspiracy. Whenever a regiment arrives or leaves, whenever a train stirs — yes, by Heaven, every time a locomotive toots or a mule brays or a chicken has the pip — somebody informs the Johnnies, and every detail is known to them within a few hours!”
The Special Messenger seated herself on the edge of the camp table. “I suppose they are very disagreeable to you about it at headquarters.”
“Yes, they are — but how can I help it? Somehow or other, whatever is done or said or even thought in this devilish supply camp is immediately reported to Jeb Stuart; every movement of trains and troops leaks out; he’ll know to-night what I ate for breakfast this morning — I’ll bet on that. And, Messenger, let me tell you something. Joking aside, this thing is worrying me sick. Can you help me?”
“I’ll try,” she said. “Headquarters sent me. They’re very anxious up there about the railroad.”
“I can’t help it!” cried the distracted officer. “On Thursday I had to concentrate the line-patrol to drive Maxon’s bushwhackers out of Laurel Siding; and look what Stuart did to me. No sooner were we off than he struck the unguarded section and tore up two miles of track! What am I to do?”
The Special Messenger shook her pretty head in sympathy.
“There’s a leak somewhere,” insisted the angry officer; “it smells to Heaven, but I can’t locate it. Somewhere there’s a direct, intelligent and sinister underground communication between Osage Court House and Jeb Stuart at Sandy River — or wherever he is. And what I want you to do is to locate that leak and plug it.”
“Of course,” murmured the Special Messenger, gently tapping her riding skirt with her whip.
“Because,” continued the Colonel, “headquarters is stripping this depot of troops. The Bucktails go to-day; Casson’s New York brigade and Darrel’s cavalry left yesterday. What remains is a mighty small garrison for a big supply depot — eleven hundred effectives, and they may take some of them at any moment. You see the danger?”
“Yes, I do.”
“I’ve protested; I’ve pointed out the risk we run; I sent my third messenger to headquarters this afternoon. Of course, they don’t intend to leave this depot unguarded — probably they’ll send the Vermont troops from the North this week — but between the departure of Casson’s column and the theoretical arrival of reënforcements from Preston, we’d be in a bad way if Stuart should raid us in force. And with this irritating and constant leaking out of information I’m horribly afraid he’ll strike us as soon as the Bucktails entrain.”
“Why don’t you hold the Pennsylvania infantry until we can find out where the trouble lies?” asked the girl, raising her dark eyes to the nervous young Colonel.
“I haven’t the authority; I’ve asked for it twice. Orders stand; the Bucktails are going, and I’m worried to death.” He shoved his empty pipe into his mouth and bit viciously at the stem.
“Then,” she said, “if I’m to do anything I’d better hurry, hadn’t I?”
The young officer’s face grew grimmer. “Certainly; but I’ve been a month at it and I’m no wiser. Of course I know you are very celebrated, ma’am; but, really, do you think it likely that you can pick out this hidden mischief-maker before he sends word to Stuart to-night of our deplorable condition?”
“How long have I?”
“About a day.”
“When do the Bucktails go?”
“At nine to-night.”
“Who knows it?”
“Who doesn’t? I can’t move a regiment and its baggage in a day, can I? I’ve given them twenty-four hours to break camp and entrain.”
“Does the train master know which troops are going?”
“He has orders to hold three trains, steam up, night and day.”
“I see,” she murmured, strapping her soft riding hat more securely to her hair with the elastic band. Her eyes had been wandering restlessly around the tent as though searching for something which she could not find.
“Have you a good map of the district?” she asked.
He went to his military chest, opened it, and produced a map. For a while, both hands on the table, she leaned above the map studying the environment.
“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.”
“And this Miss Carryl — did she want to go out?”
“She owns the Deal farm. Yes, she wanted to drive over every day; and I let her until, as I say, I felt obliged to stop the whole business — not permit anybody to go out or come in except our own troops.”
“And still the leakage continues?”
“It certainly does,” he said dryly.
The Special Messenger seated herself on one end of the military chest and gazed absently at space. Her booted foot swung gently at intervals.
“So this Miss Carryl owns John Deal’s farm,” she mused aloud.
“They run it on shares, I believe.”
“Oh! Was she angry when you shut out her tenant, John Deal, and shut her inside the lines?”
“No; she seemed a little surprised — said it was inconvenient — wanted permission to write him.”
“You gave it?”
“Yes. I intimated it would save time if she left her letters to him unsealed. She seemed quite willing.”
“You read them all, of course, before delivering them?”
“Of course. There was nothing in them except instructions about plowing, fruit picking, and packing, and various bucolic matters.”
“Oh! Nothing to be read between the lines? No cipher? No invisible ink? No tricks of any sort?”
“Not one. I had a detective here. He said there was absolutely no harm in the letters, in Miss Carryl, or in John Deal. I have all the letters if you care to look at them; I always keep the originals and allow only copies to be sent to old man Deal.”
“Let me see those letters,” suggested the Messenger.
The Colonel, who had been sitting on the camp table, got off wearily, rummaged in a dispatch box, and produced three letters, all unsealed.
Two were directed in a delicately flowing, feminine hand to John Deal, Waycross Orchard. The Messenger unfolded the first and read:
Dear Mr. Deal:
Colonel Gay has thought it necessary, for military reasons, to revoke my pass; and I shall, therefore,
be obliged hereafter to communicate with you by letter only.
I wish, if there are negroes enough remaining in the quarters, that you would start immediately a seedling orchard of white Rare-ripe peaches from my orchard here. I have permission to send the pits to you by the military post-rider who passes my house. I will send you twenty every day as my peaches ripen. Please prepare for planting. I hope your rheumatism is better.
Yours very truly, Evelyn Carryl.
The Messenger’s dark eyes lifted dreamily to the Colonel:
“You gave her permission to send the pits by your post-rider?”
“Yes,” he said, smiling; “but I always look over them myself. You know the wedding gown of the fairy princess was hidden in a grape seed.”
“You are quite sure about the pits?”
“Perfectly.”
“Oh! When does the next batch of twenty go?”
“In about an hour. Miss Carryl puts them in a bag and gives them to my messenger who brings them to me. Then I inspect every pit, tie up the bag, seal it, and give it to my messenger. When he takes the mail to the outposts he rides on for half a mile and leaves the sealed bag at Deal’s farm.”
“Does your messenger know what is in the bag?”
“No, he doesn’t.”
She nodded, amused, saying carelessly:
“Of course you trust your post-rider?”
“Absolutely.”
The Special Messenger swung her foot absently to and fro, and presently opened another letter:
Dear Mr. Deal:
I am sending you twenty more peach pits for planting. What you write me about the bees is satisfactory. I have received the bees you sent. There is no reason why you should not make the exchange with Mr. Enderly, as it will benefit our hives as well as Mr. Enderly’s to cross his Golden Indias with my Blacks.
The Messenger studied the letter thoughtfully; askance, the officer watched the delicate play of expression on her absorbed young face, perhaps a trifle incredulous that so distractingly pretty a woman could be quite as intelligent as people believed.
She looked up at him quietly.
“So you gave Deal permission to send some bees to Miss Carryl and write her a letter?”
“Once. I had the letter brought to me and I sent her a copy. Here it is — the original.”
He produced Deal’s letter from the dispatch pouch, and the Messenger read:
Miss Evelyn Carryl, Osage Court House.
Respected Miss:
I send you the bees. I seen Mr. Enderly at Sandy River he says he is very wishful for to swap bees to cross the breed I says it shorely can be done if you say so I got the pits and am studyin’ how to plant. The fruit is a rottin’ can’t the Yankees at Osage buy some truck nohow off’n me? So no more with respect from
John Deal Supt.
“That seems rather harmless, doesn’t it?” asked the Colonel wearily.
“I don’t — know. I think I’ll take a look at John Deal’s beehives.”
“His beehives!”
“Yes.”
“What for?”
She shrugged her shoulders.
“I don’t know — exactly. I was always fond of bees. They’re so useful” — she looked up artlessly— “so clever — quite wonderful, Colonel. Have you ever read anything about bees — how they live and conduct themselves?”
The Colonel eyed her narrowly; she laughed, sprang up from the military chest, and handed back his letters.
“You have already formed your theory?” he inquired with a faintly patronizing air, under which keen disappointment betrayed itself where the grim, drooping mouth tightened.
“Yes, I have. There’s a link missing, but — I may find that before night. You can give me — how long?”
“The Bucktails leave at nine. See here, Messenger! With all the civility and respect due you, I — —”
“You are bitterly disappointed in me,” she finished coolly. “I don’t blame you, Colonel Gay.”
He was abashed at that, but unconvinced.
“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.”
“As you like,” he said, without interest.
“I want, also, a pass for Miss Carryl.”
“To pass our lines?”
“To pass out. She will not care to return.”
“Certainly,” he said with amiable curiosity.
He scratched off the order and she took it.
“Ask for anything you desire,” he said, smiling.
“Then may I have this tent to myself for a little while? And would you be kind enough to send for my saddlebags and my own horse.”
The Colonel went to the tent flap, spoke to the trooper on guard. When he came back he said that it was beginning to rain.
“Hard?” she asked, troubled.
“No; just a fine, warm drizzle. It won’t last.”
“All the better!” she cried, brightening; and it seemed to the young officer as though the sun had gleamed for an instant on the tent wall. But it was only the radiant charm of her, transfiguring, with its youthful brilliancy, the dull light in the tent; and, presently, the Colonel went away, leaving her very busy with her saddlebags.
There was a cavalry trooper’s uniform in one bag; she undressed hurriedly and put it on. Over this she threw a long, blue army cloak, turned up the collar, and, twisting her hair tightly around her head, pulled over it the gray, slouch campaign hat, with its crossed sabres of gilt and its yellow braid.
It was a boyish-looking rider who mounted at the Colonel’s tent and went cantering away through the warm, misty rain, mail pouch and sabre flopping.
There was no need for her to inquire the way. She knew Waycross, the Carryl home, and John Deal’s farm as well as she knew her own home in Sandy River.
The drizzle had laid the dust and washed clean the roadside grass and bushes; birds called expectantly from fence and thorny thicket, as the sun whitened through the mist above; butterflies, clinging to dewy sprays, opened their brilliant wings in anticipation; swallows and martins were already soaring upward again; a clean, sweet, fragrant vapor rose from earth and shrub.
Ahead of her, back from the road, at the end of its private avenue of splendid oaks, an old house glimmered through the trees; and the Special Messenger’s eyes were fixed on it steadily as she rode.
Pillar, portico, and porch glistened white amid the leaves; Cherokee roses covered the gallery lattice; an old negro was pretending to mow the unkempt lawn with a
sickle, but whenever the wet grass stuck to the blade he sat down to examine the landscape and shake his aged head at the futility of all things mundane. The clatter of the Special Messenger’s horse aroused him; at the same instant a graceful woman, dressed in black, came to the edge of the porch and stood there as though waiting.
The big gateway was open; under arched branches the Messenger galloped down the long drive and drew bridle, touching the brim of her slouch hat. And the Southern woman looked into the Messenger’s eyes without recognition.
Miss Carryl was fair, yellow-haired and blue-eyed — blonder for the dull contrast of the mourning she wore — and her voice was as colorless as her skin when she bade the trooper good afternoon.
All she could see of this cloaked cavalryman was two dark, youthful eyes above the upturned collar of the cloak, shadowed, too, by the wet hat brim, drooping under gilded crossed sabres.
“You are not the usual mail-carrier?” she asked languidly.
“No, ma’am” — in a nasal voice.
“Colonel Gay sent you?”
“Yes, ma’am.”
Miss Carryl turned, lifted a small salt sack, and offered it to the Messenger, who leaned wide from her saddle and took it in one hand.
“You are to take this bag to the Deal farm. Colonel Gay has told you?”
“Yes, ma’am.”
“Thank you. And there is no letter to-day. Will you have a few peaches to eat on the way? I always give the mail-carrier some of my peaches to eat.”
Miss Carryl lifted a big, blue china bowl full of superb, white, rare-ripe peaches, and, coming to the veranda’s edge, motioned the Messenger to open the saddlebags. Into it she poured a number of peaches.
“They are perfectly ripe,” she said; “I hope you will like them.”
“Thank’y, ma’am.”
“And, Soldier,” she turned to add with careless grace, “if you would be kind enough to drop the pits back into the saddlebag and give them to Mr. Deal he would be glad of them for planting.”
“Yes’m; I will — —”
“How many peaches did I give you? Have you enough?”
“Plenty, ma’am; you gave me seven, ma’am.”
“Seven? Take two more — I insist — that makes nine, I think. Good day; and thank you.”
Works of Robert W Chambers Page 416
