yes flashed level with his. "I've
got--you--anyhow----"

Her up-flung elbow, flexed like a steel wedge, caught him in the throat;
they fell over the low ridge, writhing in each other's embrace, down the
slope, over and over, faster, faster--crack!--his head struck a ledge,
and he straightened out, quivering, then lay very, very still and heavy
in her arms.

Fiercely excited, she tore strips from her skirt, twisted them, forced
him over on his face, and tied his wrists fast.

Then, leaving him inert there on the moss, she ran back for his
revolver, found it, opened it, made certain that the cylinder was full,
and, flinging one last glance down the pass, hastened to her prisoner.

Her prisoner opened his eyes; the dark bruise on his forehead was
growing redder and wetter.

"Stand up!" she said, cocking her weapon.

The boy, half stupefied, struggled to his knees, then managed to rise.

"Go forward along that path!"

For a full minute he stood erect, motionless, eyes fixed on her; then
shame stained him to the temples; he turned, head bent, and walked
forward, wrists tightly tied behind him.

And behind him, weapon swinging, followed the Special Messenger in her
rags, pallid, disheveled, her dark eyes dim with pity.

VIII

EVER AFTER

--And they married, and had many children, and
lived happy ever after.--Old Tales

For two days the signal flags had been talking to each other; for two
nights the fiery torches had been conversing about that beleaguered city
in the South.

Division after division, corps after corps, were moving forward; miles
of wagons, miles of cavalry in sinuous columns unending, blackened every
valley road. Later, the heavy Parrots and big Dahlgrens of the siege
train stirred in their parked lethargy, and, enormous muzzles tilted,
began to roll out through the valley in heavy majesty, shaking the
ground as they passed, guarded by masses of red artillerymen.

Day after day crossed cannon flapped on red and white guidons; day after
day the teams of powerful horses, harnessed in twenties, trampled
through the valley, headed south.

Off the sandy headland a Federal gunboat lay at anchor, steam up--a
blackened, chunky, grimy thing of timber and iron plates, streaked with
rust, smoke blowing horizontally from her funnels. And day after day she
consulted hill and headland with her kaleidoscopic strings of flags; and
headland and hill talked back with flutter