hed them
leg-stiff to overtake us."

Dick fell silent for the moment, and when he spoke again some of Dan
Morgan's solemnity seemed to have got into his blood.

"I have a sort of coward inpricking that I sha'n't come out of this with
a whole skin, Jack; and there's a thing on my mind that mayhap you can
take off. You have had Madge to yourself a dozen times since that day
last autumn when I asked her for the hundredth time to put me out of
misery. As I have said, she would not hear me through; but she gave me a
look as I had struck her with a whip. Can you tell me why?"

The morning breeze heralding the sunrise was whispering to the leafless
branches overhead, and there was nothing in all Dame Nature's peaceful
setting of the scene to hint at the impending war-clash. Yet the war
portent was abroad in all the peaceful morning, and my mood marched with
the lad's when I gave him his answer.

"Truly, I could tell you, Richard; and it is your due to know it from no
other lips than mine. Mayhap, a little later, when restitution can go
hand in hand with repentance and confession--"

"No, no;" he cut in quickly. "Tell me now, Jack; your 'little later' may
be all too late--for me. Does she love you?--has she said she loves
you?"

"Nay, dear lad; she despises me well and truly, and has never missed the
chance of saying so. Wait but a little longer and I pledge you on the
honor of a gentleman you shall have her for your very own. Will that
content you?"

At my assurance his mood changed and in a twinkling he became the
dauntless soldier who fights, not to die, but to win and live.

"With that word to keep me I shall not be killed to-day, I promise you,
Jack; and that in spite of this damned queasiness that was showing me
the burying trench." And then he added softly: "God bless her!"

I could say amen to that most heartily; did it, and would have gone on
to add a benison of my own, but at the moment there were sounds of
galloping horses on our front, and presently three red-coated officers,
one of them the redoubtable Colonel Tarleton himself, rode out to
reconnoitre us most coolly.

I doubt if he would have been so rash had he known that Yeates and his
borderers were concealed in easy pistol-shot; but the simultaneous
cracking of a dozen rifles warned and sent the trio scuttling back to
cover.

Dick swore piteously, with the snap-shot skirmishers for a target. "The
fumblers!" he raged. "'Twas the chance of a life-ti