“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 noble 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.