ie
to-morrow, he would forget to come to the funeral. And you think I
wouldn't be glad? Well, you're mistaken, as usual. I hate him, and I
just know he hates me! Everybody hates me!"

The eyes of her worshipper turned upon her. But she only turned her
own away across the great plain to the vast arching sky, and patted
the caleche with a little foot that ached for deliverance from its
Sunday shoe. Then her glance returned, and all the rest of the way
home she was as sweet as the last dip of cane-juice from the boiling
battery.

CHAPTER IV.

THE CONSCRIPT OFFICER.

By and by 'Thanase was sixteen. Eighteen was the lowest age for
conscription, yet he was in the Confederate uniform. But then so was
his uncle Sosthene; so was his father. It signified merely that he had
been received into the home guard. The times were sadly unsettled.
Every horseman, and how much more every group of horsemen, that one
saw coming across the prairie, was watched by anxious eyes, from the
moment they were visible specks, to see whether the uniform would turn
out to be the blue or the gray. Which was the more unwelcome I shall
not say, but this I can, that the blue meant invasion and the gray
meant conscription. Sosthene was just beyond the limit of age, and
'Thanase two years below it; but 'Thanase's father kept a horse
saddled all the time, and slept indoors only on stormy nights.

Do not be misled: he was neither deserter nor coward; else the
nickname which had quite blotted out his real name would not have been
Chaouache--savage, Indian. He was needed at home, and--it was not his
war. His war was against cattle-thieves and like marauders, and there
was no other man in all Carancro whom these would not have had on
their track rather than him. But one gray dawn they found there was
another not unlike him. They had made an attempt upon Sosthene's
cattle one night; had found themselves watched and discovered; had
turned and fled westward half the night, and had then camped in the
damp woods of a _bas fond_; when, just as day was breaking and they
were looking to their saddles about to mount--there were seven of
them--just then--listen!--a sound of hoofs!

Instantly every left foot is in stirrup; but before they can swing
into the saddle a joyous cry is in their ears, and pop! pop! pop! pop!
ring the revolvers as, with the glad, fierce cry still resounding,
three horsemen launch in upon them--only three, but those three a
whirlwin