n Smyrna, paid the driver and dismissed the team, and
started briskly through the pastures across lots toward Hiram Look's
farm.

An hour later, moving with the stealth of red Indians, they posted
themselves behind the stone wall opposite the lane leading into the
Look dooryard. They squatted there breathing stertorously, their
eyes goggling into the night.

The Cap'n, with vision trained by vigils at sea, was the first to
see the dim shape approaching. When she had come nearer they saw a
tall feather nodding against the dim sky.

"Let's get her before she throws the letter--get her with the goods
on her!" breathed Hiram, huskily. And when she was opposite they
leaped the stone wall.

She had seasonable alarm, for several big stones rolled off the
wall's top. And she turned and ran down the road with the two men
pounding along fiercely in pursuit.

"My Gawd!" gasped Aaron, after a dozen rods; "talk
about--gayzelles--she's--she's--"

He didn't finish the sentence, preferring to save his breath.

But skirts are an awkward encumbrance in a sprinting match. Hiram,
with longer legs than the pudgy Cap'n, drew ahead and overhauled the
fugitive foot by foot. And at sound of his footsteps behind her, and
his hoarse grunt, "I've got ye!" she whirled and, before the amazed
showman could protect himself, she struck out and knocked him flat
on his back. But when she turned again to run she stepped on her skirt,
staggered forward dizzily, and fell in a heap. The next instant the
Cap'n tripped over Hiram, tumbled heavily, rolled over twice, and
brought up against the prostrate fugitive, whom he clutched in a
grasp there was no breaking.

"Don't let her hit ye," howled Hiram, struggling up. "She's got an
arm like a mule's hind leg."

"And whiskers like a goat!" bawled the Cap'n, choking in utter
astonishment. "Strike a match and let's see what kind of a
blamenation catfish this is, anyhow."

And a moment later, the Cap'n's knees still on the writhing figure,
they beheld, under the torn veil, by the glimmer of the match, the
convulsed features of Batson Reeves, second selectman of the town
of Smyrna.

"Well, marm," remarked Hiram, after a full thirty seconds of amazed
survey, "you've sartinly picked out a starry night for a ramble."

Mr. Reeves seemed to have no language for reply except some shocking
oaths.

"That ain't very lady-like talk," protested Look, lighting another
match that he might gloat still further. "Y