le countryside for you, and you'll all be
in their hands within an hour."

Watson turned pale. It was the paleness of vexation rather than of fear.
"Why were we fools enough to come to this house," he thought. He knew how
quickly they could be caught by cavalrymen.

The Major smiled in a tantalizing manner. "I think you will take my advice
and surrender," he said, sitting down carelessly in a chair and swinging
one of his long legs over the other. "If, on investigation, it proves that
you are not spies, you will be allowed to go on your way. If there's any
doubt about it, however, you will be sent to Richmond."

Macgreggor, with a bound, leaped in front of the Confederate, and, pulling
out a revolver, pointed it at Lightfoot's head. "Unless you promise not to
have us followed, you shan't leave this room alive!" he cried with the
tone of a man daring everything for liberty. George fully expected to see
the officer falter, for he had seen that the Major was unarmed.

But Lightfoot did nothing of the kind. On the contrary, he gave one of his
provoking laughs. "Don't go into heroics," he said, pushing Macgreggor
away as though he were "shoohing" off a cat. "You know I would promise
anything, and the second your backs were turned I'd give the alarm. You
don't think I would be fool enough to see you fellows walking away without
making a trial to get you back?"

Macgreggor hesitated, as he looked at George and Watson. Then he answered
fiercely, handling his pistol ominously the meanwhile: "We've but one
chance--and we'll take it! We will never let you leave this room alive,
promise or no promise. You are unarmed, and there are _three_ of us,
armed."

The Major did not seem to be at all startled. He merely changed the
position of his legs, as he answered: "Killing me wouldn't do you any
good, my boy! If you do shoot me before I can escape from the room the
shooting would only alarm the house--the cavalry would be summoned by Mrs.
Page, and you would find yourself worse off even than you are now."

Watson touched Macgreggor on the shoulder. "The Major's right," he said;
"we would only be shooting down a man in cold blood, and gaining nothing
by it. He has trapped us--and, so long as those plagued cavalrymen are so
near, we had better submit. I think I've got as much courage as the next
man, but I don't believe in butting one's head against a stone wall."

Macgreggor sullenly replaced his pistol. He could not but see the f