r cheeks and she was breathing quickly. She passed through the gate
into the grounds of the General Minot place and closed that gate behind
her.

"There!" she said. "Now they are locked up in the hen yard. How in the
world they ever got out of there I don't see. I suppose some one left
the gate open. I--What were you going to say?"

The captain had been about to confess that it was he who left the gate
open, but he changed his mind. Apparently she had been on the point of
saying something more. The confession could wait.

"What was it?" asked the young woman.

"Oh, nothin', nothin'."

"Well, I suppose it doesn't matter much how they got out, as long as
they did. But I am _very_ sorry they got into Mr. Cahoon's garden. I
hope they haven't completely ruined it."

They both turned to survey the battlefield. It was--like all
battlefields after the strife is ended--a sad spectacle.

"Oh, dear!" exclaimed the visitor. "I am afraid they have. What _will_
Mr. Cahoon say?"

The captain smiled slightly.

"I hope you don't expect me to answer that," he observed.

"Why?... Oh, I see! Well, I don't know that I should blame him much.
Have--have they left anything?"

"Oh, yes! Yes, indeed. There are a good many--er--sprouts left. And they
dug up a lot of weeds besides. Judah ought to be thankful for the weeds,
anyhow."

"I am afraid he won't be, under the circumstances."

"Maybe not, but there is one thing that, under the same circumstances,
he _ought_ to be thankful for. That is, that you came when you did. You
may not know it, but I had been tryin' to get those hens out of that
garden for--for a year, I guess. It seems longer, but I presume likely
it wasn't more than a year."

She laughed again. "No," she said, "I guess it wasn't more than that."

"Probably not. If it had been any longer, judgin' by the way they worked,
they'd have dug out the underpinnin' and had the house down by this time.
How did you happen to come? Did you hear the--er--broadsides?"

"Why, no, I--But that reminds me. Have you seen a tramp around here?"

"A tramp? What sort of a tramp?"

"I don't know. Elvira--I mean Miss Snowden--said he was a tall, dark man
and Aurora thought he was rather thick-set and sandy. But they both
agree that he was a dreadful, rough-looking creature who carried a big
club and had a queer slouchy walk. And he came in this direction, so
they thought."

"He did, eh? Humph! Odd I didn't see him. I've been here all