poke in a very loud tone, for I was very angry, and I knew that the
only way to contend with a woman was to make more noise than she could.
Just as I was about to continue my railing protest, Jane Ryder came
through an inner door, dressed, as she should be, in the garb of her
sex. Her toilette would have been complete but for the fact that in her
haste her hair had fallen loose from its fastenings and now flowed over
her shoulders and down to her waist, black as night and as shiny as
silk.

"I thank you both for your good opinions," she said, making a mock
courtesy, "especially the chivalrous Mr. Carroll Shannon, with his
straps, and his hickories, and his riding-whips, and I hope he will
soon get a woman on whom he can use them all."

"Oh, Jane! Jane!" cried the other, "why will you worry those who love
you? Why will you try them so?"

The young woman's face fell at that, and she seemed to be very
contrite. She went quickly across the room and never paused until she
found herself in the woman's arms, and showed her love by so many
quaint and delicate little caresses, and had such a dainty and
bewitching way about her, that no human could have held out against
her. The woman's face had cleared on the instant and was no more
clouded with grief and anxiety. "You see how she is," said the woman to
me; "hurting you to the heart one minute and making you forget it the
next."

"I see," I replied; "but you should control her. You should make her
remember who and what she is, and not permit her to go about as a man
or boy. Don't you know how dangerous it is?"

"Oh, but she's her own mistress," the woman explained. "She can
wheedle, and no one can say her nay. But I'm glad she went away
to-night, though I was terribly afraid for her. She had no more than
got out of hearing before there came a pack of troopers, and nothing
must do but they must search the whole house from top to bottom. They
were hunting for Leroy, too, and if she had been here there would have
been trouble."

"What did I tell you?" I exclaimed. "I captured her ahead of them,
carried her to General Forrest, and now she is my prisoner. I am
responsible for her."

"I believe I had rather the others had captured me," Jane Ryder
declared. The woman looked at me and shook her head, as much as to say,
"Never believe her."

"Why did you trouble yourself?" Jane Ryder inquired. "I am sure I never
gave you any cause to worry yourself about me. If you think you h