cut shoe
looked tiny upon it as she stepped up. He swung her to the saddle behind
him, and the great warhorse sprang forward so suddenly, with such long,
swift strides, that she swayed precariously for a moment and was glad to
catch the guerilla's belt--to seize, too, with an agitated clutch,
his right gauntlet that he held backward against his side. His fingers
promptly closed with a reassuring grasp on hers, and thus skimming
the red sunset-tide they left behind them the staring group about the
blacksmith shop, which the cavalrymen had now approached, watering their
horses at the trough and lifting the saddles to rest the animals from
the constriction of the pressure of the girths.

Soon the guerilla and the girl disappeared in the distance; the fences
flew by; the shocks of corn seemed all a-trooping down the fields; the
evening star in the red haze above the purple western mountains
had spread its invisible pinions, and was a-wing above their heads.
Presently the heavy shadows of the looming wooded range, darkening now,
showing only blurred effects of red and brown and orange, fell upon
them, and the guerilla checked the pace, for the horse was among
boulders and rough ledges that betokened the dry bed of a stream. Great
crags had begun to line the way, first only on one marge of the channel;
then; the clifty banks appeared on the other side, and at length a
deep> black-arched opening yawned beneath the mountains, glooming
with sepulchral shadows; in the silence one might hear drops trickling
vaguely and the sudden hooting of an owl from within.

He drew up his horse abruptly, and contemplated the grim aperture.

"So they came into Tanglefoot down the road, and went out of the Cove by
this tunnel?"

"Yessir!" she piped. What had befallen her voice? what appalled eerie
squeak was this! She cleared her throat timorously. "They couldn't hev
done it later in the fall season. Tanglefoot Creek gits ter runnin' with
the fust rains."

"An' Tolhurst knew that too! He must have had a guide--a guide that
knows the Cove like I know the palm of my hand! Well, I'll catch him
yet, sometime. I'll hang him! I'll hang him--if I have to grow a tree
a-pur-pose."

What strange influence had betided the landscape? Around and around
circled the great stationary mountains anchored in the foundations of
the earth. It was a long moment before they were still again--perhaps,
indeed, it was the necessity of guarding her balance on the f