p, she rose softly and slipped out the door
without awakening even old Jack, and went to the barn, where she got
the sheep-bell that old Beelzebub used to wear and with the clapper
caught in one hand, to keep the bell from tinkling, she went swiftly
down the road toward Hurricane Gap. Several times she had to dart into
the bushes while men on horseback rode by her, and once she came near
being caught by three men on foot--all hurrying at Daws Dillon's order
to the Gap through which she must go. When the road turned from the
river, she went slowly along the edge of it, so that if discovered, she
could leap with one spring into the bushes. It was raining--a cold
drizzle that began to chill her and set her to coughing so that she was
half afraid that she might disclose herself. At the mouth of the Gap
she saw a fire on one side of the road and could hear talking, but she
had no difficulty passing it, on the other side. But on, where the Gap
narrowed--there was the trouble. It must have been an hour before
midnight when she tremblingly neared the narrow defile. The rain had
ceased, and as she crept around a boulder she could see, by the light
of the moon between two black clouds, two sentinels beyond. The crisis
was at hand now. She slipped to one side of the road, climbed the cliff
as high as she could and crept about it. She was past one picket now,
and in her eagerness one foot slipped and she half fell. She almost
held her breath and lay still.

"I hear somethin' up thar in the bresh," shouted the second picket.
"Halt!"

Melissa tinkled the sheep-bell and pushed a bush to and fro as though a
sheep or a cow might be rubbing itself, and the picket she had passed
laughed aloud.

"Goin' to shoot ole Sally Perkins's cow, air you?" he said, jeeringly.
"Yes, I heerd her," he added, lying; for, being up all the night
before, he had drowsed at his post. A moment later, Melissa moved on,
making considerable noise and tinkling her bell constantly. She was
near the top now and when she peered out through the bushes, no one was
in sight and she leaped into the road and fled down the mountain. At
the foot of the spur another ringing cry smote the darkness in front of
her:

"Halt! Who goes there?"

"Don't shoot!" she cried, weakly. "It's only me."

"Advance, 'Me,'" said the picket, astonished to hear a woman's voice.
And then into the light of his fire stepped a shepherdess with a
sheep-bell in her hand, with a beautiful, pale