ied grimly, "into a hell's mint o' rebels.
What's your business in these parts, ma'am?"

Her business was to trust no one, yet there had been occasions when she
had been forced to such a risk. This was one. She looked around at the
house, the dismantled buckboard tenanted by roosting chickens, the ducks
in the puddle, the narrow strip of pasture fringing the darkening woods.
She looked into his weather-ravaged visage, searching the small eyes
that twinkled at her intently out of a mass of wrinkles.

"Are you a Union man?" she asked.

His face hardened; a slow color crept into the skin above his sharp
cheek bones. "What's that to you?" he demanded.

"Here in Pennsylvania we expect to find Union sentiments. Besides, you
just now spoke of rebels----"

"Yes, an' I'll say it again," he repeated doggedly; "the Pennsylvany
line is crawlin' with rebels, an' they'll butt into our cavalry before
morning."

She laughed, stepping nearer, the muddy skirt of her habit lifted.

"I must get to Reynolds's corps to-night," she said confidingly. "I came
through the lines three days ago; their cavalry have followed me ever
since. I can't shake them off; they'll be here by morning--as soon as
there's light enough to trace my horse."

She looked back at the blue woods thoughtfully, patting her horse's
sleek neck.

He followed her glance, then his narrowing eyes focused on her as she
turned her head toward him again.

"What name?" he asked harshly, hand to his large ear.

She smiled, raising her riding whip in quaint salute; and in a low voice
she named herself demurely.

There was a long silence.

"Gosh!" he muttered, fascinated gaze never leaving her; "to think that
you are that there gal! I heard tell you was young, an' then I heard
tell you was old an' fat, ma'am. I guess there ain't many has seen you
to take notice. I guess you must be hard run to even tell me who ye be?"

She said quietly: "I think they mean to get me this time. Is there a
clear road anywhere? Even if I leave my horse and travel afoot?"

"Is it a hangin' matter?" he asked.

She shrugged her shoulders.

Presently he said: "The hull blame country's crawlin' with rebel
cavalry. I was to Mink Creek, an' they was passin' on the pike, wagons
an' guns as fur as I could see. They levied on Swamp Holler at sunup;
they was on every road along the State line. There ain't no road nor cow
path clear that way."

"And none the other way," she said. "Can't you he