cry to her
brother inarticulate upon her lips. They came nearer, they were
opposite to her; her brother Jim keeping step with the invader, and
even conversing with him with an animation she had seldom seen upon his
face--they passed! She had been unnoticed except by one. The roving
eye of the deserter had detected her handsome face among the leaves,
slightly turned towards it, and poured out his whole soul in a single
swift wink of eloquent but indescribable confidence.

When they had quite gone, she crept back to the house, a little
reassured, but still tremulous. When her brother returned at
nightfall, he found her brooding over the fire, in the same attitude as
on the previous night.

"I reckon ye might hev seen me go by with the sodgers," he said,
seating himself beside her, a little awkwardly, and with an unusual
assumption of carelessness.

Maggie, without looking up, was languidly surprised. He had been with
the soldiers--and where?

"About two hours ago I met this yer Leftenant Calvert," he went on with
increasing awkwardness, "and--oh, I say, Mag--he said he saw you, and
hoped he hadn't troubled ye, and--and--ye saw him, didn't ye?"

Maggie, with all the red of the fire concentrated in her cheek as she
gazed at the flame, believed carelessly "that she had seen a shrimp in
uniform asking questions."

"Oh, he ain't a bit stuck up," said Jim quickly, "that's what I like
about him. He's ez nat'ral ez you be, and tuck my arm, walkin' around,
careless-like, laffen at what he was doin', ez ef it was a game, and he
wasn't sole commander of forty men. He's only a year or two older than
me--and--and"--he stopped and looked uneasily at Maggie.

"So ye've bin craw-fishin' agin?" said Maggie, in her deepest and most
scornful contralto.

"Who's craw-fishin'?" he retorted, angrily.

"What's this backen out o' what you said yesterday? What's all this
trucklin' to the Fort now?"

"What? Well now, look yer," said Jim, rising suddenly, with
reproachful indignation, "darned if I don't jest tell ye everythin'. I
promised HIM I wouldn't. He allowed it would frighten ye."

"FRIGHTEN ME!" repeated Maggie contemptuously, nevertheless with her
cheek paling again. "Frighten me--with what?"

"Well, since yer so cantankerous, look yer. We've been robbed!"

"Robbed?" echoed Maggie, facing him.

"Yes, robbed by that same deserter. Robbed of a suit of my clothes,
and my whiskey-flask, and the darned skunk had 'e