solicitude in her voice. "Oh, I hope you haven't hurt her," she cried.
"She has the tenderest heart in the world."

"Hurt her? Hurt her?" It was all that I could say, and then all of a
sudden I came to myself and stood there laughing very foolishly. "She
ran away," I explained. "I don't know why. I am sure I didn't want her
to go!"

Whereupon Kate fell to laughing, and kept it up until the tears came
into her eyes. "Oh, men are such simpletons!" she exclaimed; "I don't
know what I should do for amusement if I didn't see the lords of
creation once in a great while."

We bade good-by to the household--though Jane Ryder was nowhere to be
found--and went to our horses, which we had left in charge of Whistling
Jim. That worthy was in quite a flutter. He had heard strange noises,
and he was almost sure that he had caught a glimpse of more than one
man in the darkness. We paid little enough attention to what he said,
for we knew that the ladies were safe so far as the Confederates were
concerned, and Jack Bledsoe would answer for their safety with the
Federals.

Nevertheless, there was no one to answer for our safety, and we had no
more than mounted our horses before we discovered that we were
surrounded. We heard the tramp of cavalry on all sides. A quiet voice
in the darkness made itself heard: "Don't shoot unless they resist!"

"Ride them down!" exclaimed Harry. My horse ran full into another
horse, and he and his rider went down just as I used my pistol. Some
one with an oath whacked me over the head with a sabre, my horse
stumbled in the darkness, and down I went into chaos. I thought I heard
someone singing, and then it seemed as if there was a free concert in
progress, while I lay helpless in a great gully out of which I could
not climb.

VIII

Making a great effort to climb from the gully into which I had fallen,
my foot slipped, and I fell again, and continued to fall till I knew no
more. When I came to life again I was not in a gully at all, but
stretched out on a bed, with my boots on, and this fact fretted me to
such an extent that I threw back the covering and rose to a sitting
posture. My head was throbbing somewhat wildly, and I soon found that
the cause of the pain was a towel that had been too tightly bound
around my forehead. The towel changed into a bandage under my fingers,
and I found that I could not compass the intricacies of the fastenings.
I remembered that I had disposed safely of th