s eyes. It had changed.

Only hallucination caused by an abrupt transition from darkness to
light; only the most mundane facts of the old troughs and ash-hoppers,
relics of the industry that had served the hideous carnage of battle;
only the yellow head of the ranger's brat, who had climbed into one of
them, from which the mare was calmly munching her corn.

[Illustration: Yet this was Christmas Eve 201]

Yet this was Christmas Eve. And the Child did lie in a manger.

Perhaps it was well for him that his ignorant faith could accept the
illusion as a vision charged with all the benignities of peace on earth,
good-will toward men. With a keen thrill in his heart, on his knees he
drew the charge from his rifle, and flung it down a rift in the rocks.
"Chrismus Eve," he murmured.

He leaned his empty weapon against the wall, and strode out to the
little girl who was perched up on the trough.

"Chrismus gift, Cunnel!" he cried, cheerily. "Ter-morrer's Chrismus."

The echoes caught the word. In vibratory jubilance they repeated
it. "Chrismus!" rang from the roof, scintillating with calcspar;
"Chrismus!" sounded from the colonnade of stalactites that hung down to
meet the uprising stalagmites; "Chrismus!" repeated the walls incrusted
with roses that, shut in from the light and the fresh air of heaven,
bloomed forever in the stone. Was ever chorus so sweet as this?

It reached Tobe Gryce, who stood at his improvised corn-bin. With a
bundle of fodder still in his arms he stepped forward. There beside
the little Colonel and the black mare he beheld a man seated upon an
inverted half-bushel measure, peacefully lighting his pipe with a bunch
of straws which he kindled at the lantern on the ash-hopper.

The ranger's black eyes were wide with wonder at this intrusion, and
angrily flashed. He connected it at once with the attack on the stable.
The hair on his low forehead rose bristlingly as he frowned. Yet he
realized with a quaking heart that he was helpless. He, although the
crack shot of the county, would not have fired while the Colonel was
within two yards of his mark for the State of Tennessee.

He stood his ground with stolid courage--a target.

Then, with a start of surprise, he perceived that the intruder was
unarmed. Twenty feet away his rifle stood against the wall.

Tobe Gryce was strangely shaken. He experienced a sudden revolt of
credulity. This was surely a dream.

"Ain't that thar Luke Todd? Why air ye a-