y the girl lowered the
lid and then turned like a flash toward the door.

No one appeared there, so she went close to survey the situation. The
troopers had dismounted and stood in silence by their horses. A
gray-bearded man, whose red cheeks and nose shone vividly above the
whiskers, was strolling about with two or three others. They wore
double-breasted coats, and faded yellow sashes were wound under their
black leather sword belts. The gray-bearded soldier was apparently
giving orders, pointing here and there.

Mary tiptoed to the feed box. "They've all got off their horses," she
said to it. A finger projected from a knothole near the top and said to
her very plainly, "Come closer." She obeyed, and then a muffled voice
could be heard: "Scoot for the house, lady, and if we don't see you
again, why, much obliged for what you done."

"Good-bye," she said to the feed box.

She made two attempts to walk dauntlessly from the barn, but each time
she faltered and failed just before she reached the point where she
could have been seen by the blue-coated troopers. At last, however, she
made a sort of a rush forward and went out into the bright sunshine.

The group of men in double-breasted coats wheeled in her direction at
the instant. The gray-bearded officer forgot to lower his arm which had
been stretched forth in giving an order.

She felt that her feet were touching the ground in a most unnatural
manner. Her bearing, she believed, was suddenly grown awkward and
ungainly. Upon her face she thought that this sentence was plainly
written: "There are three men hidden in the feed box."

The gray-bearded soldier came toward her. She stopped; she seemed about
to run away. But the soldier doffed his little blue cap and looked
amiable. "You live here, I presume?" he said.

"Yes," she answered.

"Well, we are obliged to camp here for the night, and as we've got two
wounded men with us I don't suppose you'd mind if we put them in the
barn."

"In--in the barn?"

He became aware that she was agitated. He smiled assuringly. "You
needn't be frightened. We won't hurt anything around here. You'll all be
safe enough."

The girl balanced on one foot and swung the other to and fro in the
grass. She was looking down at it. "But--but I don't think ma would like
it if--if you took the barn."

The old officer laughed. "Wouldn't she?" said he. "That's so. Maybe she
wouldn't." He reflected for a time and then decided cheerfully: "