re to the soul's credit, Oscar,"
and then Armitage's mood changed and he had begun chaffing in a fashion
that was beyond Oscar's comprehension.

The little soldier rode over the hills to Lamar Station in the waning
spring twilight, asked at the telegraph office for messages, stuffed
Armitage's mail into his pockets at the post-office, and turned home as
the moonlight poured down the slopes and flooded the valleys. The
Virginia roads have been cursed by larger armies than any that ever
marched in Flanders, but Oscar was not a swearing man. He paused to rest
his beast occasionally and to observe the landscape with the eye
of a strategist. Moonlight, he remembered, was a useful accessory of the
assassin's trade, and the faint sounds of the spring night were all
promptly traced to their causes as they reached his alert ears.

At the gate of the hunting-park grounds he bent forward in the saddle to
lift the chain that held it; urged his horse inside, bent down to
refasten it, and as his fingers clutched the iron a man rose in the
shadow of the little lodge and clasped him about the middle. The iron
chain swung free and rattled against the post, and the horse snorted with
fright, then, at a word from Oscar, was still. There was the barest
second of waiting, in which the long arms tightened, and the great body
of his assailant hung heavily about him; then he dug spurs into the
horse's flanks and the animal leaped forward with a snort of rage, jumped
out of the path and tore away through the woods.

Oscar's whole strength was taxed to hold his seat as the burly figure
thumped against the horse's flanks. He had hoped to shake the man off,
but the great arms still clasped him. The situation could not last. Oscar
took advantage of the moonlight to choose a spot in which to terminate
it. He had his bearings now, and as they crossed an opening in the wood
he suddenly loosened his grip on the horse and flung himself backward.
His assailant, no longer supported, rolled to the ground with Oscar on
top of him, and the freed horse galloped away toward the stable.

A rough and tumble fight now followed. Oscar's lithe, vigorous body
writhed in the grasp of his antagonist, now free, now clasped by giant
arms. They saw each other's faces plainly in the clear moonlight, and at
breathless pauses in the struggle their eyes maintained the state of war.
At one instant, when both men lay with arms interlocked, half-lying on
their thighs, Oscar