e
that showed he was--well, that he was an Irishman, and had an eye for
beauty. The German had taken the horse by the bit, and I stepped out
from behind the school house.

Great heavens, but she was a beautiful woman, and she sat on her horse
like a statue. I had never seen a more beautiful woman. She was a
brunette, with large black eyes, and her face was flushed with the
exercise of riding.

She smiled and showed two rows of the prettiest teeth that ever were put
into a female mouth, and one ungloved hand, with which she handed me the
pass had a dimple at every knuckle, and was as white as paper, and soft
as silk. I know it was soft, because it touched my red, freckled hand
when I took the pass. I did not blame the general for being in love with
her, or for wanting to saw off the unpleasant duty of breaking up her
smuggling, on to a poor orphan like me. She said:

"Captain, I have a pass from the general, to go through the lines at any
time, unmollested."

"It is no good," I said, examining it. "This pass is evidently a
forgery."

"But, my dear captain," she said, with a smile that I would give ten
dollars for a picture of, "The pass is not a forgery. I have used it for
months."

"I am not a dear captain, only a cheap corporal," I said, with an
attempt to be at my ease, which I wasn't.

"There has been at least a wagon load of quinine smuggled through the
lines on this pass, and it has got to stop; you cannot go."

"The dickens you say," said she as she drew her revolver, and sung out,
"let go that horse," and firing at the German.

"Kritz-dunnerwetter," said the German, as he got down by the horse's fore
feet, and held on to the bridle, "vot vor you choot a man ven he holt
your horse?"

"Madame," I said, "your revolver is loaded with blank cartridges, and
you can do no harm. Try another one on the Irishman."

"Hold on," said the Irishman, "and don't experiment on a poor man who
has a wife and six children. Shoot the corporal."

But I had reached up and taken the revolver from her, and she was weak
as a kitten. Her nerve had forsaken her, and when I told her to dismount
she was like a rag, and had to be helped down. If she was beautiful
before, now that she had started her tear mill, she was ravishingly
radiant, and I felt like a villain. She leaned on my shoulder, and it
was the loveliest burden a soldier ever held. I seated her on the steps
of the schoolhouse, and I thought she would faint, but she d