e
straight toward the woods; it should happen that an old beech stock
stands where you come out. Take then the path that winds up-hill, and it
will bring you to the war booths before you can open your foolish mouth
thrice. Trolls! what a cub to send a message by! But get along, now; you
will suffer from their temper if they think it likely that you have kept
them waiting." He gave the horse a stinging slap upon the flank, that
sent him forward like a shaft from a bow.

Snatching up her slackened rein with one hand, his rider managed to
secure her leaping cap with the other; and after the first bounce, she
caught the jerky gait instinctively and swayed her body into its uneven
swing. But her heart was all at once a-throb in a wild panic. Was this
what a boy must expect? This challenging brutal downrightness, which
made one seem to have become a dog that must prove his usefulness or
be kicked aside? Her spirit felt as bruised as a fledgeling fallen upon
stony ground. She shivered as the old beech stock loomed up before her.

"If these other men behave so, it is in my mind to tell them that I am a
woman," she decided. "Since they are my own people, no evil can come of
their knowing; and I dislike the other feeling."

The recollection that she had always this escape open gave her a new
lease of boldness. Her courage rose as fast as her body when they began
to climb the hillside toward the ruddy light that slanted down between
the tree-trunks. When a sentinel stopped her near the top, she faced him
with a fairly firm front.

"I have war news for King Canute," she told him haughtily; and he let
her pass with no more than a grin.

The camp appeared to be strung through the whole beech grove that
covered the crest of the hill. The first sign of it began less than
ten yards beyond the sentry, where a couple of squatting thralls were
skinning a slain deer; and as far as eye could swim in the flood of
sunset light, the green aisles were dotted with scattered groups. Every
flat rock had a ring of dice-throwers bending over it; every fallen
trunk its row of idlers. Wherever a cluster of boulders made a passable
smithy, crowds of sweating giants plied hammer and sharpening-stone.
The edges of the little stream that trickled down to the valley were
thronged with men bathing gaping wounds and tearing up the cool moss to
staunch their flowing blood. Never had the girl dreamed of such chaos.
It gave her the feeling of having plunged