ch of cold horror about her heart seemed to stop
its pulsations for a moment. She saw the still mountains whirl about the
horizon as if in some weird bewitchment. Her nerveless hands loosened
their clasp upon the sley and it fell to the ground, clattering on
the protruding roots of the trees. The sound attracted the miller's
attention. He fixed his eyes warily upon her, a sudden thought looking
out from their network of wrinkles.

"You didn't see no guide whenst they slipped past you-uns' house, did
ye?"

Poor, unwilling casuist! She had an instinct for the truth in its purest
sense, the innate impulse toward the verities unspoiled by the taint of
sophistication. Perhaps in the restricted conditions of her life she
had never before had adequate temptation to a subterfuge. Even now,
consciously reddening, her eyes drooping before the combined gaze of her
little world, she had an inward protest of the literal exactness of her
phrase. "Naw sir--I never seen thar guide."

"Thar now, what did I tell you!" the miller exclaimed, triumphantly.

The blacksmith seemed convinced. "Mought hev hed a map," he speculated.
"Them fellers in the army _do_ hev maps. I fund that out whenst I war in
the service."

The group listened respectfully. The blacksmith's practical knowledge
of the art of war had given him the prestige of a military authority.
Doubtless some of the acquiescent wights entertained a vague wonder how
the army contrived to fare onward bereft of his advice. And, indeed,
despite his maimed estate, his heart was the stoutest that thrilled to
the iteration of the trumpet.

Nearer now it was, and once more echoing down the sunset glen.

"Right wheel, trot--_march_," he muttered, interpreting the sound of the
horses' hoofs. "It's a critter company, fur sure!"

There was no splendor of pageant in the raid of the guerilla into the
Cove. The pines closing above the cleft in the woods masked the entrance
of the "critter company." Once a gleam of scarlet from the guidon
flashed on the sight. And again a detached horseman was visible in a
barren interval, reining in his steed on the almost vertical slant,
looking the centaur in literal presentation. The dull thud of hoofs
made itself felt as a continuous undertone to the clatter of stirrup and
sabre, and now and again rose the stirring mandate of the trumpet, with
that majestic, sweet sweep of sound which so thrills the senses. They
were coming indubitably, the troop of th