suddenly seemed to become weak. He breathed heavily and
clung to the rail. He was glaring at the captain, and apparently
summoning all his will power to combat his weakness. The corporal
addressed him with profound straightforwardness, "Don't you be a derned
fool!" The youth turned toward him so fiercely that the corporal threw
up a knee and an elbow like a boy who expects to be cuffed.

The girl pleaded with the captain. "You won't hurt him, will you? He
don't know what he's saying. He's wounded, you know. Please don't mind
him!"

"I won't touch him," said the captain, with rather extraordinary
earnestness; "don't you worry about him at all. I won't touch him!"

Then he looked at her, and the girl suddenly withdrew her fingers from
his arm.

The corporal contemplated the top of the stairs, and remarked without
surprise, "There's another of 'em coming!"

An old man was clambering down the stairs with much speed. He waved a
cane wildly. "Get out of my house, you thieves! Get out! I won't have
you cross my threshold! Get out!" He mumbled and wagged his head in an
old man's fury. It was plainly his intention to assault them.

And so it occurred that a young girl became engaged in protecting a
stalwart captain, fully armed, and with eight grim troopers at his back,
from the attack of an old man with a walking-stick!

A blush passed over the temples and brow of the captain, and he looked
particularly savage and weary. Despite the girl's efforts, he suddenly
faced the old man.

"Look here," he said distinctly, "we came in because we had been
fighting in the woods yonder, and we concluded that some of the enemy
were in this house, especially when we saw a gray sleeve at the window.
But this young man is wounded, and I have nothing to say to him. I will
even take it for granted that there are no others like him upstairs. We
will go away, leaving your d----d old house just as we found it! And we
are no more thieves and rascals than you are!"

The old man simply roared: "I haven't got a cow nor a pig nor a chicken
on the place! Your soldiers have stolen everything they could carry
away. They have torn down half my fences for firewood. This afternoon
some of your accursed bullets even broke my window panes!"

The girl had been faltering: "Grandpa! O grandpa!"

The captain looked at the girl. She returned his glance from the shadow
of the old man's shoulder. After studying her face a moment, he said,
"Well, we will go