had anywhere near here?" he asked, pausing to
swallow what his sunken jaws had been working on.

"No; the soldiers have taken everything."

"I will pay--anything if you'll let me have something to ride."

She shook her head.

He went on eating; a slight color had come back into his face.

"I'm sorry I was rough with you," he said, not looking at her.

"Why were you?"

He raised his head wearily.

"I've been hunted so long that I guess it's turned my brain. Except for
what you've been good enough to give me, I've had nothing inside me for
days, except green leaves and bark and muddy water.... I suppose I can't
see straight.... There's a woman they call the Special Messenger;--I
thought they might have started her after me.... That shot at the ford
seemed to craze me.... So I risked the ferry--seeing your light
across--and not knowing whether Snuyder was still here or whether they
had set a guard to catch me.... It was Red Ferry or starve; I'm too weak
to swim; I waited too long."

And as the food and hot tea warmed him, his vitality returned in a
maddened desire for speech after the weeks of terror and silence.

"I don't know who you are," he went on, "but I guess you're not fixed
for shooting at me, as every living thing seems to have done for the
last fortnight. Maybe you're in Yankee pay, maybe in Confederate; I
can't help it. I suppose you'll tell I've been here after I'm gone....
But they'll never get me now!" he bragged, like a truant schoolboy
recounting his misdemeanor to an awed companion.

"Who are you?" she asked very gently.

He looked at her defiantly.

"I'm Roy Allen," he said, "of Kay's Cavalry.... If you're fixing to tell
the Union people you might as well tell them who fooled 'em!"

"What have you done?"

She inquired so innocently that a hint of shame for his suspicion and
brutality toward her reddened his hollow cheeks.

"I'll tell you what I've done," he said. "I've taken to the woods,
headed for Dixie, with a shirtful of headquarter papers. That's what
I've done.... And perhaps you don't know what that means if they catch
me. It means hanging."

"Hanging!" she faltered.

"Yes--if they get me." His voice quivered, but he added boastingly: "No
fear of that! I'm too many for old Kay!"

"But--but why did you desert?"

"Why?" he repeated. Then his face turned red and he burst out violently:
"I'll tell you why. I lived in New York, but I thought the South was in
the right. Then t