“But the court was enclosed.  He would have had to go with the paper through the house itself.”

“That’s where my theory fails.  I can provide for his taking the paper, but I can’t provide for his escape.”

“I’ll tell the General about it.  I think you’re right, Harry.  I’ve heard of Shepard myself, and he’s worth ten thousand men to the Yankees.  It’s more than that.  At such a critical stage of our affairs he might ruin us.  We’ll make a general search for him.  We’ll rake the city with a fine tooth comb.”

The search was made everywhere.  Soldiers pried in every possible place, but they found nobody who could not give an adequate account of his presence in Richmond.  Harry felt sure nevertheless that Shepard was somewhere in the capital, protected by his infinite daring and resource, and they received the startling news the next day after the search that a messenger sent northward with dispatches for Lee had been attacked only a short distance from the city.  He had been struck from behind, and did not see his assailant, but the wound in the head—­the man had been found unconscious—­and the missing dispatches were sufficient proof.

A night later precious documents were purloined from the office of the Secretary of War and a list of important earthworks on the North and South Carolina coast disappeared from the office of the Secretary of the Navy.  Alarm spread through all the departments of the Confederacy.  Some one, spy and burglar too, had come into the very capital, and he was having uncommon success.

Harry had not the least doubt that it was Shepard, and he was filled with an ambition to capture this man, whom he really liked.  If Shepard were caught he would certainly be hanged, but then a spy must take his chances.

They heard meanwhile that General Lee had gone to a former camp of his on the Opequan, but that later in response to maneuvers by General Meade, he moved to a position near Front Royal.  No orders came for Harry or Dalton to rejoin him, and, as a period of inactivity seemed to be at hand, they were glad to remain a while longer in Richmond.  They still stayed with the Lanhams, who refused to take any pay, although the two young officers, chipping together, bought for Mrs. Lanham a little watch which had just come through the blockade from England.

Thus their days lengthened in Richmond, and, despite the shadow of the spy and his doings which was over Harry, they were still very pleasant.  The members of the Mosaic Club, although older men, made much of them, and Harry and Dalton, being youths of sprighty wit, were able to hold their own in such company.  The time had now passed into August, and they sat one afternoon in the lobby of the big hotel with their new friends.  Richmond without was quiet and blazing in the sun.  Harry had received a second letter from his father from an unnamed point in Georgia.  It did not contain much news, but it was full of cheerfulness, and it intimated in more than one place that Bragg’s army was going to strike a great blow.