s small, uncertain legs followed her into one of the
only two rooms. The fat tenant of the hovel had left some lightwood and
kindling, and pots and pans necessary for such an existence as he led on
earth.

The Messenger twisted up her hair and pinned it; then culinary rites
began, the kitten breaking into a thin purring when an odor of bacon
filled the air.

"Poor little thing!" murmured the Messenger, going to the door for a
brief cautionary survey. And, coming back, she lifted the fry pan and
helped the kitten first.

They were still eating when the sun set and the sudden Southern darkness
fell over woods and fields and river. A splinter of lightwood flared
aromatically in an old tin candlestick; by its smoky, wavering radiance
she heated some well water, cleaned the tin plates, scoured pan and
kettle, and set them in their humble places again.

Then, cleansing her hands daintily, she dried them, and picked up her
sewing.

For her, night was the danger time; she could not avoid, by flight
across the river, the approach of any enemy from the south; and for an
enemy to discover her sitting there in darkness, with lightwood in the
house, was to invite suspicion. Yet her only hope, if surprised, was to
play her part as keeper of Red Ferry.

So she sat mending, sensitive ears on the alert, breathing quietly in
the refreshing coolness that at last had come after so many nights of
dreadful heat.

The kitten, too, enjoyed it, patting with tentative velvet paw the skein
of silk dangling near the floor.

But it was a very little kitten, and a very lonely one, and presently it
asked, plaintively, to be taken up. So the Messenger lifted the mite of
fluffy fur and installed it among the linen on the table, where it went
to sleep purring.

Outside the open door the dew drummed loudly; moths came in clouds,
hovering like snowflakes about the doorway; somewhere in the woods a
tiger owl yelped.

About midnight, lying on her sack of husks, close to the borderland of
sleep, far away in the darkness she heard a shot.

In one bound she was at the door, buttoning her waist, and listening.
And still listening, she lighted a pine splinter, raised her cotton
skirt, and adjusted the revolver, strapping the holster tighter above
and below her right knee.

The pulsing seconds passed; far above the northern river bank a light
sparkled through the haze, then swung aloft; and she drew paper and
pencil from her pocket, and wrote dow