Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. This is an OCR edition with typos. Excerpt from book: CHAPTER III. NEWS BY THE CUTTER. O doubt, the cutter Jackson, said the Major, as with rapid steps he and Dr. Gordon made their way to the beach. She is expected with Government dispatches and supplies for our garrison. And, since she is direct from both Charleston and Savannah, it is possible, Doctor, that she may have letters for you as well as for me. I shall greatly prize my mail, responded Dr. Gordon; yet I have an interest in the cutter at this moment paramount to any reasons connected with news from home. She has probably passed over the track pursued by my fugitives; and if she has not been fortunate enough to have given them a passage back, I cannot but hope that she is able to tell us something about them. Why did I not think of this myself? rejoined the other, in a tone of self-reproach. By the time they reached the low bluff, the appreaching vessel had passed so far to seaward oh her larboard tack as to present to their sight her full broadside, with black hull, raking masts, and well-defined port-holes. Every one recognized her as a cutter, the cutter Jackson. All aboard Shove off were orders issued in rapid succession. Officers and men were in their seats, except the two belonging forward. They were standing in the water until the bow of the boat had been lifted from its bed in the sand, and was clearly afloat, when they leaped lightly in and also took their places; and then the short and sharp Give way, men, brought the oars to work with such vigor and concord as to make all feel the successive impulses with which they shot along the water, until they had rounded a projecting shoal, when the sail was again raised, the oars were unshipped, and they glided noiselessly and swiftly on their way. Less than an hour's time brought th...