but at last a voice,
thick with sleep, called: "Who's there?"

"I'm lost and I need shelter," Harry replied.

"Wait a minute," returned the voice.

Harry, despite the beat of the rain, heard a shuffling inside, and then,
through a crack in the door, he saw a light spring up. He hoped the
owner of the voice would hurry. The rain seemed to be beating harder
than ever upon him and the cold was in his bones. Then the door was
thrown back suddenly and an uncommonly sharp voice shouted:

"Drop the reins! Throw up your hands an' walk in, where I kin see what
you are!"

Harry found himself looking into the muzzle of an old-fashioned
long-barreled rifle. But the hammer was cocked, and it was held by a
pair of large, calloused, and steady hands, belonging to a tall, thin
man with powerful shoulders and a bearded face.

There was no help for it. The boy dropped the reins, raised his hands
over his head and walked into the hut, where the rain at least did not
reach him. It was a rude place of a single room, with a fire-place at
one end, a bed in a corner, a small pine table on which a candle burned,
and clothing and dried herbs hanging from hooks on the wall. The man
wore only a shirt and trousers, and he looked unkempt and wild, but he
was a resolute figure.

"Stand over thar, close to the light, whar I kin see you," he said.

Harry moved over, and the muzzle of the rifle followed him. The man
could look down the sights of his rifle and at the same time examine his
visitor, which he did with thoroughness.

"Now, then, Johnny Reb," he said, "what are you doin' here this time o'
night an' in such weather as this, wakin' honest citizens out o' their
beds?"

"Nothing but stand before the muzzle of your rifle."

The man grinned. The answer seemed to appeal to him, and he lowered the
weapon, although he did not relax his watchfulness.

"I got the drop on you, Johnny Reb; you're boun' to admit that," he
said. "You didn't ketch Seth Perkins nappin'."

"I admit it. But why do you call me Johnny Reb?"

"Because that's what you are. You can't tell much about the color of
a man's coat after it's been through sech a big rain, but I know yourn
is gray. I ain't takin' no part in this war. They've got to fight it
as best they kin without me. I'm jest an innercent charcoal burner,
'bout the most innercent that ever lived, I guess, but atween you an' me,
Johnny Reb, my feelin's lean the way my state, Old Virginny,