CHAPTER XXVI.
THE UNDERGROUND MISSIVE.
Dick Hawkridge, standing on the ground, looked up in the bronzed face of Duke Vesey, sitting in the saddle.
At every window on the lower floor were faces watching the two men that had thus met under a flag of truce.

From the ridge on the right, and the undulating ground to the left, peered the rustlers, intensely interested in the actions of the couple, whose words were spoken in tones too low to reach the ears of any on either side.

No actors ever had a more attentive audience than they.
When Hawkridge announced to Vesey that his proffer was rejected (for it was useless to report first to Capt.

Asbury, as he had been told to do), the horseman said: "Dick, you would have been a cur to accept such terms, though I would do anything to even matters with that Asbury; but I want to get a message to Mont Sterry." "You can trust me to carry it." "It is for him alone; I have it in writing.

Well, good-by." He leaned over from the saddle and extended his hand.