very
necessary. "Whose cabin is this?" demanded one of them.

"It did belong to old Sam Curtis, but he's moved away, down to Alabama,"
some one answered.

"Some darky may live in it now, eh?" said the first voice.

"Perhaps it's empty, and these tarnation spies are in it," was the
rejoinder in a lower tone.

The men moved their horses closer to the house, which they quickly
surrounded. No chance now for any one to escape; it seemed as if the three
men in the cabin must inevitably be caught like rats in a trap. Yet they
waited courageously, breathlessly. It was a tense moment. Another minute
would decide their fate. Would they remain free men, or would they fall
into the hands of their pursuers, with all the consequences that such a
capture implied?

Already one of the Vigilants, evidently the leader, had dismounted.
Approaching the door of the cabin, he gave it a push as if he expected it
would open at once. But there was no yielding; Watson and Macgreggor were
still leaning firmly against the other side.

The leader began to knock on the door with a revolver. "Here, here," he
shouted; "if there's any one in this cabin, come out--or we'll have you
out!"

At first there was no response, save a bark from Waggie. The leader
rattled savagely at the door. "Let's break in," he cried to his
companions, "and see if the place has any one in it!"

The Vigilants were about to follow the example of their leader, and
dismount when there came a wheedling voice--apparently the voice of a
negress--from within the cabin.

"What you gemmen want dis time o' night wid poor Aunty Dinah?"

"A nigger's living here," muttered the leader, in surprise.

"What for you gwyne to disturb an ole niggah at dis hour?" asked the voice
from within.

"It's all right, aunty," called out the leader. "We only want some
information. Come to the door."

"In one minute I be with you," was the answer. "I'se a nursin' my old man
here--he done gone and took the smallpox--and----"

The smallpox! Had the voice announced that a million Union troops were
descending upon the party the consternation would not have been half as
great. The smallpox! At the mention of that dreaded name, and at the
thought that they were so close to contagion, the Vigilants, with one
accord, put spurs into their horses and rushed madly away. The leader,
dropping his revolver in his excitement, and not even stopping to pick it
up, leaped upon his horse and joined in the in