"The Commandant gave orders that he was not to be disturbed."
"He must be," said Chad. "It is a matter of life and death."
Above him a window was suddenly raised and the Commandant"s own head was thrust out.
"Stop that noise," he thundered. Chad told his mission and the Commandant straightway was furious.
"How dare General Ward broach that matter again? My orders are given and they will not be changed." As he started to pull the window down, Chad cried:
"But, General-" and at the same time a voice called down the street:
"General!" Two men appeared under the gaslight-one was a sergeant and the other a frightened negro.
"Here is a message, General."
The sash went down, a light appeared behind it, and soon the Commandant, in trousers and slippers, was at the door. He read the note with a frown.
"Where did you get this?"
"A sojer come to my house out on the edge o" town, suh, and said he"d kill me to-morrow if I didn"t hand dis note to you pussonally."
The Commandant turned to Chad. Somehow his manner seemed suddenly changed.
"Do you know that these men belonged to Morgan"s command?"
"I know that Daniel Dean did and that the man Dillon was with him when captured."
Still frowning savagely, the Commandant turned inside to his desk and a moment later the staff-officer brought out a telegram and gave it to Chad.
"You can take this to the telegraph office yourself. It is a stay of execution."
"Thank you."
Chad drew a long breath of relief and gladness and patted Dixie on the neck as he rode slowly toward the low building where he had missed the train on his first trip to the Capital. The telegraph operator dashed to the door as Chad drew up in front of it. He looked pale and excited.
"Send this telegram at once," said Chad.
The operator looked at it.
"Not in that direction to-night," he said, with a strained laugh, "the wires are cut."
Chad almost reeled in his saddle-then the paper was whisked from the astonished operator"s hand and horse and rider clattered up the hill.
At head-quarters the Commandant was handing the negro"s note to a staff-officer. It read:
"YOU HANG THOSE TWO MEN AT SUNRISE TO-MORROW, AND I"LL HANG YOU AT SUNDOWN."
It was signed "John Morgan," and the signature was Morgan"s own.
"I gave the order only last night. How could Morgan have heard of it so soon, and how could he have got this note to me? Could he have come back?"
"Impossible," said the staff-officer. "He wouldn"t dare come back now."
The Commandant shook his head doubtfully, and just then there was a knock at the door and the operator, still pale and excited, spoke his message:
"General, the wires are cut."
The two officers stared at each other in silence.
Twenty-seven miles to go and less than three hours before sunrise. There was a race yet for the life of Daniel Dean. The gallant little mare could cover the stretch with nearly an hour to spare, and Chad, thrilled in every nerve, but with calm confidence, raced against the coming dawn.
"The wires are cut."
Who had cut them and where and when and why? No matter-Chad had the paper in his pocket that would save two lives and he would be on time even if Dixie broke her n.o.ble heart, but he could not get the words out of his brain-even Dixie"s hoofs beat them out ceaselessly:
"The wires are cut-the wires are cut!"
The mystery would have been clear, had Chad known the message that lay on the Commandant"s desk back at the Capital, for the boy knew Morgan, and that Morgan"s lips never opened for an idle threat. He would have ridden just as hard, had he known, but a different purpose would have been his.
An hour more and there was still no light in the East. An hour more and one red streak had shot upward; then ahead of him gleamed a picket fire-a fire that seemed farther from town than any post he had seen on his way down to the Capital-but he galloped on. Within fifty yards a cry came:
"Halt! Who comes there?"
"Friend," he shouted, reining in. A bullet whizzed past his head as he pulled up outside the edge of the fire and Chad shouted indignantly:
"Don"t shoot, you fool! I have a message for General Ward!"
"Oh! All right! Come on!" said the sentinel, but his hesitation and the tone of his voice made the boy alert with suspicion. The other pickets about the fire had risen and grasped their muskets. The wind flared the flames just then and in the leaping light Chad saw that their uniforms were gray.
The boy almost gasped. There was need for quick thought and quick action now.
"Lower that blunderbuss," he called out, jestingly, and kicking loose from one stirrup, he touched Dixie with the spur and pulled her up with an impatient "Whoa," as though he were trying to replace his foot.
"You come on!" said the sentinel, but he dropped his musket to the hollow of his arm, and, before he could throw it to his shoulder again, fire flashed under Dixie"s feet and the astonished rebel saw horse and rider rise over the pike-fence. His bullet went overhead as Dixie landed on the other side, and the pickets at the fire joined in a fusillade at the dark shapes speeding across the bluegra.s.s field. A moment later Chad"s mocking yell rang from the edge of the woods beyond and the disgusted sentinel split the night with oaths.
"That beats the devil. We never touched him I swear, I believe that hoss had wings."
Morgan! The flash of that name across his brain cleared the mystery for Chad like magic. n.o.body but Morgan and his daredevils could rise out of the ground like that in the very midst of enemies when they were supposed to be hundreds of mlles away in Tennessee. Morgan had cut those wires. Morgan had every road around Lexington guarded, no doubt, and was at that hour hemming in Chad"s unsuspicious regiment, whose camp was on the other side of town, and unless he could give warning, Morgan would drop like a thunderbolt on it, asleep. He must circle the town now to get around the rebel posts, and that meant several miles more for Dixie.
He stopped and reached down to feel the little mare"s flanks. Dixie drew a long breath and dropped her muzzle to tear up a rich mouthful of bluegra.s.s.
"Oh, you beauty!" said the boy, "you wonder!" And on he went, through woodland and field, over gully, log, and fence, bullets ringing after him from nearly every road he crossed.
Morgan was near. In disguise, when Bragg retreated, he had got permission to leave Kentucky in his own way. That meant wheeling and making straight back to Lexington to surprise the Fourth Ohio Cavalry; representing himself on the way, one night, as his old enemy Wolford, and being guided a short cut through the edge of the Bluegra.s.s by an ardent admirer of the Yankee Colonel-the said admirer giving Morgan the worst tirade possible, meanwhile, and nearly tumbling from his horse when Morgan told him who he was and sarcastically advised him to make sure next time to whom he paid his compliments.
So that while Chad, with the precious message under his jacket, and Dixie were lightly thundering along the road, Morgan"s Men were gobbling up pickets around Lexington and making ready for an attack on the sleeping camp at dawn.