e kissed him.

He invited me to ride with him at the head of his little squad of
troops, saying that when a colonel started out to command a corporal's
guard he assuredly needed assistance. He was perhaps thirty years old,
but he had a tremendous fund of animal spirits, so that he had all the
ways of a gay youth of twenty. He paid no more attention to the man who
had been knocked about by Whistling Jim than if he had been a log of
wood, and yet he was very tender-hearted. Whatever was in the line of
war appealed to his professional instincts. War was his trade, and he
seemed to love it; and he had a great relish for the bustle and stir
that are incident thereto.

His sister rode in the top-buggy in which I had first seen her, and she
might have been the commander of the men, judging from the way she gave
instructions. She seemed to know all the roads, for she went ahead
without the slightest hesitation. She was driving a good horse, too;
his trot was sufficient to keep our horses in a canter; and whenever he
heard us coming up behind him he would whisk the buggy away as if he
scorned company. Perhaps this was due to the little lady who was
driving him.

I had no grudge against her, heaven knows, but somehow I resented my
present plight, for which I thought she was responsible. She had given
me fair warning, but she should have known that it was my purpose to
carry out the orders of General Forrest; and if I was to be warned at
all she should have told me the precise nature of the danger. In that
case, I could not only have escaped, but I could have been instrumental
in the capture of her brother and his whole party. Perhaps she knew
this--and perhaps this was why she would give me no definite
information.

But if she knew at all she must have known everything; her brother must
have come in response to a summons from her or her mother. In any case
I had been tricked--I had been made a fool of--and after what I had
done for her, I felt that I had a right to feel aggrieved. Colonel
Ryder observed my sullenness and commented on it.

"Don't be down-hearted, my boy. It is the fortune of war; there is no
telling when it may turn its sunny side to you. In your place I should
whistle and sing and make the best of it. Still, I know how you feel,
and I sympathize with you."

"I should not have gone to that house last night," he went on, "but I
knew that my mother was there, and I had received information that one
of our sc