Slade must be mad clean through."

"Slade! Slade! Who's Slade?"

"Slade is a spy partly, and an outlaw mostly, 'cause he often works on his own hook. He's the weazened little fellow with so much hat-brim, and he's about twenty different kinds of a demon. You've plenty of reason to fear him, and it's lucky we've met."

"It's more than luck for me, Sergeant. It's salvation. I believe it wouldn't have been half as hard on me if somebody had been with me, and you're the first whom I would have chosen. Are they still in the dip, Sergeant?"

"No, they've passed to the slope on the right, and I think they'll go over the hill. We're safe here so long as we remain quiet; that is, safe for the time. Slade will hang on as long as there's a possible chance to find us."

"Sergeant, if they do happen to stumble upon us in the dark I hope you'll promise to do one thing for me."

"I'll do anything I can, Mr. Mason."

"Kill Slade first. That little villain gives me the horrors. I believe the soul of the last bloodhound I shot has been reincarnated in him."

"All right, Mr. Mason," returned the sergeant, placidly, "if we have to fight I'll make sure of Slade at once. Is there anybody else you'd like specially to have killed?"

"No thank you, Sergeant. I don't hate any of the others, and I suppose they'd have dropped the chase long ago if it hadn't been for this fellow whom you call Slade. Now, I think I'll lie quiet, while you watch."

"Very good, sir. I'll tell you everything I can see. They're passing over the hill out of sight, and if they return I won't fail to let you know."

Sergeant Whitley, a man of vast physical powers, hardened by the long service of forest and plain, was not weary at all, and, in the dusk, he looked down with sympathy and pity at the lad who had closed his eyes. He divined the nature of the ordeal through which he had gone. Dick's face, still badly swollen from the bites of the mosquitoes, showed all the signs of utter exhaustion. The sergeant could see, despite the darkness, that it was almost the face of the dead, and he knew that happy chance had brought him in the moment of Dick's greatest need.

He ceased to whisper, because Dick, without intending it, had gone to sleep again. Then the wary veteran scouted in a circle about their refuge, but did not discover the presence of an enemy.

He sat down near the sleeping lad, with his rifle between his knees, and watched the moon come out. Owing to his wilderness experience he had been chosen also to go on a scout toward Jackson, though he preferred to make his on foot, and the sound of Dick's shots at the hounds had drawn him to an observation which finally turned into a rescue.

After midnight the sergeant slept a little while, but he never awakened Dick until it was almost morning. Then he told him that he would go with him on the mission to Hertford, and Dick was very glad.

"What's become of Slade and his men?" asked Dick.

"I don't know," replied the sergeant, "but as they lost the trail in the night, it's pretty likely they're far from here. At any rate they're not bothering us just now. How're you feeling, Mr. Mason?"

"Fine, except that my face still burns."

"We'll have to hold up a Confederate house somewhere and get oil of pennyroyal. That'll cure you, but I guess you've learned now, Mr. Mason, that mosquitoes in a southern swamp are just about as deadly as bullets."

"So they are, Sergeant, and this is not my first experience. Luck has been terribly against me this trip, but it turned when I met you last night."

"Yes, Mr. Mason.