trouble him, but as for telling the story to
me, that was past--he was living it over, to himself alone, with every
nerve in action.

"'Look here,' said I, 'I don't believe a thing like this ever happened
on the globe before, but this has. It's so--I love you, and I believe
you love me, and I'm not going till you tell me so.'

"By that time she was in a fit. 'They'll be here in two minutes; they're
Confederate officers. Oh, and you mustn't cross at Kelly's Ford--take
the ford above it'--and she thumped me excitedly with the hand I held.
I laughed, and she burst out again: 'They'll take you--oh, please go!'

"'Tell me, then,' said I, and she stopped half a second, and gasped
again, and looked up in my eyes and said it. 'I love you,' said she. And
she meant it.

"'Give me a kiss,' said I, and I leaned close to her, but she pulled
away.

"'Oh, no--oh, please go now,' she begged.

"'All right,' said I, 'but you don't know what you're missing,' and I
slid out of the back door at the second the Southerners came in at the
front.

"There were bushes back there, and I crawled behind them and looked
through into the window, and what do you suppose I saw? I saw the
biggest and best-looking man of the three walk up to the girl who'd just
told me she loved me, and I saw her put up her face and give him the
kiss she wouldn't give me. Well, I went smashing down to the woods,
making such a rumpus that if those officers had been half awake they'd
have been after me twice over. I was so maddened at the sight of that
kiss that I didn't realize what I was doing or that I was endangering
the lives of my men. 'Of course,' said I to myself, 'it's her brother or
her cousin,' but I knew it was a hundred to one that it wasn't, and I
was in a mighty bad temper.

"I got my men away from the neighborhood quietly, and we rode pretty
cautiously all that afternoon, I knew the road leading to Kelly's Ford,
and I bore to the north, away from there, for I trusted the girl and
believed I'd be safe if I followed her orders. She'd saved my life twice
that day, so I had reason to trust her. But all the time as I jogged
along I was wondering about that man, and wondering what the dickens she
was up to, anyway, and why she was travelling in the same direction that
I was, and where she was going--and over and over I wondered if I'd over
see her again. I felt sure I would, though--I couldn't imagine not
seeing her, after what she'd said. I didn't even