d a guide! Right here in the Cove!" Ackert exclaimed.
"Nobody outside would know a hole in the ground, a cave, a water-gap, a
tunnel like that! Where's the man?"

"Naw, sir--naw, Cap'n! Nobody viewed the troop but one gal person an'
she 'lowed she never seen no guide."

The charger whirled under the touch of the hand on the rein, and
Ackert's eyes scanned with a searching intentness the group.

"Where's this girl--you?"

As the old squire with most unwelcome officiousness seized Ethelinda's
arm and hurried her forward, her heart sank within her. For one moment
the guerilla's fiery, piercing eyes dwelt upon her as she stood looking
on, her delicately white face grown deathly pallid, her golden hair
frivolously blowsed in the wind, which tossed the full skirts of her
lilac-hued calico gown till she seemed poised on the very wings of
flight. Her sapphire eyes, bluer than ever azure skies could seem,
sought to gaze upward, but ever and anon their long-lashed lids
fluttered and fell.

He was quick of perception.

"_You_ have no call to be afraid," he remarked--a sort of gruff
upbraiding, as if her evident trepidation impugned his justice in
reprisal. "Come, you can guide me. Show me just where they came in, and
just where they got out--damn 'em!"

She could scarcely control her terror when she saw that he intended her
to ride with him to the spot, yet she feared even more to draw back, to
refuse. He held out one great spurred boot. Her little low-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