Special Messenger. Chambers Robert William

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      The next moment he straightened up, pulled the sheet over the bandmaster’s face, and turned on his heel, nodding curtly to the girl as he passed out.

      When he had gone, she walked slowly to the bed and drew the sheet from the bandmaster’s face.

      And as she stood there, dry-eyed, mute, from the dusky garden came the whispering cry of the widow bird, calling, calling to the dead that answer never more.

      PART TWO

      WHAT SHE BECAME

      II

      SPECIAL MESSENGER

      On the third day the pursuit had become so hot, so unerring, that she dared no longer follow the rutty cart road. Toward sundown she wheeled her big bony roan into a cow path which twisted through alders for a mile or two, emerging at length on a vast stretch of rolling country, where rounded hills glimmered golden in the rays of the declining sun. Tall underbrush flanked the slopes; little streams ran darkling through the thickets; the ground was moist, even on the ridges; and she could not hope to cover the deep imprint of her horse’s feet.

      She drew bridle, listening, her dark eyes fixed on the setting sun. There was no sound save the breathing of her horse, the far sweet trailing song of a spotted sparrow, the undertones of some hidden rill welling up through matted tangles of vine and fern and long wild grasses.

      Sitting her worn saddle, sensitive face partly turned, she listened, her eyes sweeping the bit of open ground behind her. Nothing moved there.

      Presently she slipped off one gauntlet, fumbled in her corsage, drew out a crumpled paper, and spread it flat. It was a map. With one finger she traced her road, bending in her saddle, eyebrows gathering in perplexity. Back and forth moved the finger, now hovering here and there in hesitation, now lifted to her lips in silent uncertainty. Twice she turned her head, intensely alert, but there was no sound save the cawing of crows winging across the deepening crimson in the west.

      At last she folded the map and thrust it into the bosom of her mud-splashed habit; then, looping up the skirt of her kirtle, she dismounted, leading her horse straight into the oak scrub and on through a dim mile of woodland, always descending, until the clear rushing music of a stream warned her, and she came out along the thicket’s edge into a grassy vale among the hills.

      A cabin stood there, blue smoke lazily rising from the chimney; a hen or two sat huddled on the shafts of an ancient buckboard standing by the door. In the clear, saffron-tinted evening light some ducks sailed and steered about the surface of a muddy puddle by the barn, sousing their heads, wriggling their tails contentedly.

      As she walked toward the shanty, leading her horse, an old man appeared at the open doorway, milking stool under one gaunt arm, tin pail dangling from the other. Astonished, he regarded the girl steadily, answering her low, quick greeting with a nod of his unkempt gray head.

      “How far is the pike?” she asked.

      “It might be six mile,” he said, staring.

      “Is there a wood road?”

      He nodded.

      “Where does it lead?”

      “It leads just now,” he replied grimly, “into a hell’s mint o’ rebels. What’s your business in these parts, ma’am?”

      Her business was to trust no one, yet there had been occasions when she had been forced to such a risk. This was one. She looked around at the house, the dismantled buckboard tenanted by roosting chickens, the ducks in the puddle, the narrow strip of pasture fringing the darkening woods. She looked into his weather-ravaged visage, searching the small eyes that twinkled at her intently out of a mass of wrinkles.

      “Are you a Union man?” she asked.

      His face hardened; a slow color crept into the skin above his sharp cheek bones. “What’s that to you?” he demanded.

      “Here in Pennsylvania we expect to find Union sentiments. Besides, you just now spoke of rebels–”

      “Yes, an’ I’ll say it again,” he repeated doggedly; “the Pennsylvany line is crawlin’ with rebels, an’ they’ll butt into our cavalry before morning.”

      She laughed, stepping nearer, the muddy skirt of her habit lifted.

      “I must get to Reynolds’s corps to-night,” she said confidingly. “I came through the lines three days ago; their cavalry have followed me ever since. I can’t shake them off; they’ll be here by morning—as soon as there’s light enough to trace my horse.”

      She looked back at the blue woods thoughtfully, patting her horse’s sleek neck.

      He followed her glance, then his narrowing eyes focused on her as she turned her head toward him again.

      “What name?” he asked harshly, hand to his large ear.

      She smiled, raising her riding whip in quaint salute; and in a low voice she named herself demurely.

      There was a long silence.

      “Gosh!” he muttered, fascinated gaze never leaving her; “to think that you are that there gal! I heard tell you was young, an’ then I heard tell you was old an’ fat, ma’am. I guess there ain’t many has seen you to take notice. I guess you must be hard run to even tell me who ye be?”

      She said quietly: “I think they mean to get me this time. Is there a clear road anywhere? Even if I leave my horse and travel afoot?”

      “Is it a hangin’ matter?” he asked.

      She shrugged her shoulders.

      Presently he said: “The hull blame country’s crawlin’ with rebel cavalry. I was to Mink Creek, an’ they was passin’ on the pike, wagons an’ guns as fur as I could see. They levied on Swamp Holler at sunup; they was on every road along the State line. There ain’t no road nor cow path clear that way.”

      “And none the other way,” she said. “Can’t you help me?”

      He looked at her gravely, then his small eyes swept the limited landscape.

      “A hangin’ matter,” he mused, scratching his gray head reflectively. “An’ if they ketch you here, I guess I’ll go to Libby, too. Hey?”

      He passed his labor-worn hand over his eyes, pressing the lids, and stood so, minute after minute, buried in thought.

      “Waal,” he said, dropping his hand and blinking in the ruddy glow from the west, “I guess I ain’t done nothin’ fur the Union yet, but I’m a-goin’ to now, miss.”

      He looked around once more, his eyes resting on familiar scenery, then he set down milking stool and pail and shuffled out to where her horse stood.

      “Guess I’ll hev to hitch your hoss up to that there buckboard,” he drawled. “My old nag is dead two year since. You go in, miss, an’ dress in them clothes a-hangin’ onto that peg by the bed,” he added, with an effort. “Use ’em easy; they was hers.”

      She entered the single room of the cabin, where stove, table, chair, and bed were the only furniture. A single cheap print gown and a sunbonnet СКАЧАТЬ