y hasn't much
left, I reckon, and the captain filled him up with fairy tales. Some of
them drifted about among the boys. There were others told also not quite
so pleasant, which Hardy did not hear. You see, none of us cared to
repeat them, after we realized Miss Willifred was interested in
the man."

"You mean duelling?"

"No, that was rather mild; fellows in his regiment mostly cut him dead,
and say he is yellow; generally in the hospital when there's a battle
on. But Forsdyke tells the worst story--he heard it in New Orleans. It
seems Le Gaire owned a young girl--a quadroon--whom he took for a
mistress; then he tired of the woman, they quarrelled, and the cowardly
brute turned her back into the fields, and had her whipped by his
overseer. She died in three months."

"I guess it's all true, Bell," I said, and I told him of the boy. "He
was our guide here last night, and it is just as well for Le Gaire the
lad did not know he was present. Help me up, will you?"

I leaned on his arm heavily, but, except for the throbbing of my head,
appeared to be in good enough condition. With slight assistance I walked
without difficulty, and together we started for the house. At the edge
of the garden Hardy appeared, still breathing heavily from his run. He
stared at me, evidently relieved to find me on my feet.

"Broke the skin, my lad--a little water will make that all right. Glad
it was no worse. The fellow out-ran me."

"He got away?"

"Well, the fact is, Galesworth, I do not really know where he went. The
last glimpse I had he was dodging into that clump of bushes, but when I
got there he was gone."

"Ran along the fence," broke in Bell, pointing. "You couldn't see him
for the vines. See, here's his tracks--sprinting some, too."

We traced them easily as long as we found soft ground, but the turf
beyond left no sign. Yet he could not have turned to the left, or Bell
and I would have seen him. The fellow evidently knew this, yet if he ran
to the right it would take him to the house. It hardly seemed possible
he would go there, but he had been a guest there for some time, and
probably knew the place well; perhaps realized he would be safer
within--where no one would expect him to be--than on the road. This was
the conception which gradually came to me, but the others believed he
had gone straight ahead, seeking the nearest Confederate outpost. Able
to walk alone by this time, I went in through the back door, and bathed