l the able-bodied mountaineers
that wouldn't volunteer--damn 'em! But I swear by the right hand of
Jehovah, I'll burn every cabin in the Cove an' every blade o' forage in
the fields if you don't produce the man who guided Tolhurst's cavalry
out'n the trap I'd chased 'em into, or give me a true and satisfactory
account of him." He raised his gauntleted right hand and shook it in the
air. "So help me God!"

There was all the solemnity of intention vibrating in this fierce
asseveration, and it brought the aged non-combatants forward in eager
protestation. The old justice made as if to catch at the bridle rein,
then desisted. A certain _noli me tangere_ influence about the fierce
guerilla affected even supplication, and the "Squair" resorted to logic
as the more potent weapon of the two.

"Cap'n, Cap'n," he urged, with a tremulous, aged jaw, "be pleased to
consider my words. I'm a magistrate sir, or I was before the war run the
law clean out o' the kentry. We dun'no' the guide--we never seen the
troops." Then, in reply to an impatient snort of negation: "If ye'll
cast yer eye on the lay of the land, ye'll view how it happened. Thar's
the road"--he waved his hand toward that vague indentation in the
foliage that marked the descent into the vale--"an' down this e-end o'
the Cove thar's nex' ter nobody livin'."

The spirited equestrian figure was standing as still as a statue; only
the movement of the full pupils of his eyes, the dilation of the
nostrils, showed how nearly the matter touched his tense nerves.

"Some folks in the upper e-end of the Cove 'lowed afterward they hearn a
hawn; some folks spoke of a shakin' of the ground like the trompin' of
horses--but them troops mus' hev passed from the foot o' the mounting
acrost the aidge of the Cove."

"Scant haffen mile," put in the blacksmith, "down to a sort of cave, or
tunnel, that runs under the mounting--yander--that lets 'em out into
Greenbrier Cove."

"Gawd!" exclaimed the guerilla, striking his breast with his clenched,
gauntleted hand as his eyes followed with the vivacity of actual sight
the course of the march of the squadron of horse to the point of their
triumphant vanishment. Despite the vehemence of the phrase the
intonation was a very bleat of desperation. For it was a rich and rare
opportunity thus wrested from him by an untoward fate. In all the
chaotic chances of the Civil War he could hardly hope for its
repetition. It was part of a crack body of reg