two assistants slept in a little cottage
behind the stable. The stable door was locked but a small window at the
side had been left open for ventilation. Monkey-wise she scrambled up and
through it. A low nickering from the horses greeted her; they knew her at
once. Apache was contentedly munching his hay. Horses sleep or eat
capriciously. To slip on his bridle, adjust and cinch his saddle took but
a few minutes. Then she led him from his stall, silently unbarred the big
doors, led him outside, again closed the doors carefully, and mounted
him. The night was clear and cold. The moon, though now well toward the
western mountains, still made it bright. Not a sound had Beverly uttered
for over two hours, but now, leaning forward she clasped both arms around
the little broncho's neck, rested her face against his mane, and
whispered:

"Apache, no Seldon or Ashby can ever be told that they are lying. Do you
understand? We are going back to people who don't say such things. It's a
long distance, and I don't know the way very well I may get lost, but I
don't believe that _you_ will. Take me safely home, Apache. _Please,
please_ take me home to dear old Woodbine and mother and Uncle Athol and
Mammy Riah and Athol and--and everybody I love."

A little sob ended the entreaty, and as though he understood every word
she had spoken Apache gave a neigh loud enough to waken the Seven
Sleepers.

Beverly clapped her hand across his nostrils as she cried:

"Oh, you mustn't! You will wake everybody up! Go!" and with a bound
Apache went, but as though he now fully understood he swept like a shadow
across the lawn, out through a side gate and down the pike. Jefferson on
his cot in the cottage roused enough to mutter:

"Dat hawse a-hollerin'. I bettah get up an' see----" and then resumed his
snore just where Apache's farewell had interrupted it. And out in the
great lonely, silent night the little horse sped away like the wind. For
a mile Beverly let Apache gang his ain gait, then she drew him down to
the steady lope which he could keep up for hours without tiring.

The lines: "But there is a road from Winchester town, A good broad
highway leading down," might have been written of the first five miles of
the road Beverly was following, and which led to Front Royal. Those miles
were covered in less than half an hour. But over thirty still lay ahead
and some of them would have been pretty rough riding even in summer time
and with the road