"

He released her hand and her horse, and she rode forward into the
darkness. Her course took her first up a main street, which was crowded
with wagons, ambulances and artillery. Groups of men mingled with these,
and crowded upon the sidewalks. When she passed the light of a window
the men stared at her, and some few presumed upon her homely garb so
far as to venture upon facetious and complimentary remarks, aimed at
securing a better acquaintance.

She made no reply, but hurried her mare onward, as fast as she could
pick her way. She soon passed out of the limits of the town and was in
the country, though she was yet in the midst of camps, and still had to
thread her way through masses of men, horses and wagons moving along the
road.

The first flutter of perturbation at going out into the darkness and the
midst of armed men had given way to a more composed feeling. No one had
stopped her, or offered to, no one had shown any symptom of surprise at
her presence there at that hour. She began to hope that this immunity
would continue until she had made her way to the Union lines. She had
left the thick of the crowd behind some distance, and was going along at
a fair pace, over a clear road, studying all the while the line of fires
far to her right, in an attempt to discover a promising dark gap in
their extent.

She was startled by a hand laid upon her bridle, and a voice saying:

"Say, Sis, who mout ye be, an' whar mout ye be a-mosyin' ter this time
o' night?"

She saw a squad of brigandish-looking stragglers at her mare's head.

"My name's Polly Briggs. I live on the South Fork o' Overall's Creek.
I've done been ter Dr. Thacker's in Murfreesboro, fur some medicine fur
my sick mammy, an' I'm on my way back home, an' I'd be much obleeged ter
ye, gentlemen, ef ye'd 'low me ter go on, kase mammy's powerful sick,
an' she's in great hurry fur her medicine."

She said this with a coolness and a perfect imitation of the speech and
manner of the section that surprised herself. As she ended she looked
directly at the squad, and inspected them. She saw she had reason to be
alarmed. They were those prowling wolves found about all armies, to
whom war meant only wider opportunities for all manner of villainy and
outrage. An unprotected girl was a welcome prize to them. It was not
death as a spy she had to fear, but worse. Now, if ever, she must act
decisively. The leader took his hand from her bridle, as if to place it
on