ngly over her spectacles
at the cowering girl, "when that thar Union _dee_-tachmint rid into
Tanglefoot Cove like a rat into a trap----"

"Yes," interposed Mrs. Brusie, "through mistakin' it fur Greenbrier
Cove."

"Nuthin' would do Ethelindy but she mus' up an' offer to show the
officer the way out by that thar cave what tunnels through the spur of
the mounting down todes the bluffs, what sca'cely one o' the boys left
in the Cove would know now."

"Else he'd hev been capshured," Ethelinda humbly submitted.

"Yes"--the ruffles of her grandmother's cap were terrible to view as
they wagged at her with the nodding vehemence of her prelection--"an'
_you_ will be capshured now."

The girl visibly winced, and one of the three small boys lying about the
hearth, sharing the warm flags with half a dozen dogs, whimpered aloud
in sympathetic fright. The others preserved a breathless, anxious
silence.

"You-uns mus' be powerful keerful ter say nuthin' 'bout Ethelindy's hand
in that escape of the Fed'ral cavalry"--the old grandfather roused
himself to a politic monition. "Mebbe the raiders won't find it out--an'
the folks in the Cove dun'no' who done it, nuther."

"Yes, bes' be keerful, sure," the gran-dame rejoined. "Fur they puts
wimmin folks in jail out yander in the flat woods;" still glibly
knitting, she jerked her head toward the western world outside the
limits of the great ranges. "Whenst I war a gal I war acquainted with a
woman what pizened her husband, an' they kep' her in jail a consider'ble
time--a senseless thing ter do, ter jail her, ter my mind, fur he war a
shif'less no-'count fool, an' nobody but her would hev put up with him
ez long ez she did. The jedge an' jury thunk the same, fur they 'lowed
ez she war crazy--an' so she war, ter hev ever married him! They turned
her loose, but she never got another husband--I never knowed a
man-person but what was skittish 'bout any onhealthy meddlin' with his
vittles."

She paused to count the stitches on her needles, the big shadow of her
cap-ruffles bobbing on the daubed and chinked log walls in antic
mimicry, while down Ethelinda's pink cheeks the slow tears coursed at
the prospect of such immurement.

"Jes' kase I showed a stranger his path----"

"An' two hundred an' fifty mo'--spry, good-lookin' youngsters, able to
do the rebs a power o' damage."

"I war 'feared they'd git capshured. That man, the leader, he stopped me
down on the bank o' the creek whar I wa