“Read it to me at once, Major,” Lee said.

“Yes, sir.” Venable unfolded the flimsy sheet of paper. “Stopped at Rivington northbound per your orders of January 20. Many crates of two different shapes taken on board. Townsfolk helpful and well organized. After departing, opened two crates at random, one of each type. Contents, metal cartridges and carbines of curious manufacture. A dozen men also boarded. Asbury Finch, First Lieutenant, C.S.A.”

“Well, well,” Lee said, and then again, “Well, well. Our mysterious Mr. Rhoodie does indeed have the rifles he promised, or some of them, at any rate. Despite his certainty, I wondered, I truly did.”

“I did more than wonder, sir,” Venable answered. “I doubted, and doubted strongly. But as you say, he seems to have kept the first part of his promise.”

“So he does. When General Stuart sees what these carbines can do, he will want no others. The repeaters, which ever more of the Federal cavalry employ, have hurt his troopers badly. Now he will be able to reply on equal—or better than equal—terms. And if Mr. Rhoodie was not “spinning a tale all out of moonshine, there will be rifles for our infantry as well.”

“I wonder how much the Bureau of Ordnance is paying for these—what did he call them?”

“AK-47s,” Lee supplied. “Whatever the price, it may well mark the difference between our liberty and suppression. It would be difficult to set that price too high.”

“Yes, sir.” Venable hesitated, then went on, “May I ask, sir, what you think of Mr. Rhoodie?”

“Well, I certainly think a good deal better of him now that I know for a fact he is not a solitary charlatan with a solitary, if marvelous, carbine,” Lee said at once. Then he too paused. “But that wasn’t the whole of what you asked, was it, Major?”