the plain. A cylindrical
cloud of dust trailing its tattered skirt along the stage road suddenly
assaulted the house, and for an instant enveloped it. As it whirled away
again something emerged, or rather dropped from its skirts behind the
little cluster of low bushes which encircled the "One Spring." It was a
man.

"Thar! I knew it was suthin'," she began aloud, but the words somehow
died upon her lips. Then she turned and walked towards the inner
door, wherein her husband had disappeared,--but here stopped again
irresolutely. Then she suddenly walked through the outer door into the
road and made directly for the spring. The figure of a man crouching,
covered with dust, half rose from the bushes when she reached them. She
was not frightened, for he seemed utterly exhausted, and there was a
singular mixture of shame, hesitation, and entreaty in his broken voice
as he gasped out:--

"Look here!--I say! hide me somewhere, won't you? Just for a little.
You see--the fact is--I'm chased! They're hunting me now,--they're
just behind me. Anywhere will do till they go by! Tell you all about it
another time. Quick! Please do!"

In all this there was nothing dramatic nor even startling to her. Nor
did there seem to be any present danger impending to the man. He did
not look like a horse-thief nor a criminal. And he had tried to laugh,
half-apologetically, half-bitterly,--the consciousness of a man who had
to ask help of a woman at such a moment.

She gave a quick glance towards the house. He followed her eyes,
and said hurriedly: "Don't tell on me. Don't let any one see me. I'm
trusting you.

"Come," she said suddenly. "Get on THIS side."

He understood her, and slipped to her side, half-creeping,
half-crouching like a dog behind her skirts, but keeping her figure
between him and the house as she moved deliberately towards the barn,
scarce fifty yards away. When she reached it she opened the half-door
quickly, said: "In there--at the top--among the hay"--closed it, and was
turning away, when there came a faint rapping from within. She opened
the door again impatiently; the man said hastily: "Wanted to tell
you--it was a man who insulted a WOMAN! I went for him, you see--and"--

But she shut the door sharply. The fugitive had made a blunder. The
importation of her own uncertain sex into the explanation did not help
him. She kept on towards the house, however, without the least trace
of excitement or agitation in her manne