Читать книгу Secret Service Operator 13 - Robert William Chambers - Страница 8

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The river was invisible, but its flowing could be heard under darkly drifting mist.

Scarcely a sound from the waiting regiments; muffled tinkle of spurs; now and then a soft clash of sabers on stirrup-irons; metallic stirrings of hoofs on stones.

Fog blotted out the stars—or was it already dawn dissolving them above the mist at McCoy’s Ford?

A phantom regiment, the 2nd South Carolina Cavalry, sitting their horses in column of fours, became dimly visible. Wraith-like shapes of men and horses en vedette detached themselves from the whitening riverside vapors.

Some Confederate scouts and two dozen dismounted men of the 10th Virginia came creeping through wet bushes.

A mounted officer, muffled in his scarlet-lined riding cloak, spoke in a quiet voice: “Is that you, Phillips?”

“Yes, General.”

“What time have you?”

“It is a quarter to five o’clock, sir.”

“Wait till five.”

Lieutenant Phillips silently extended his arms, keeping his men back.

Now, through intense silence, came the scrape and jarring of slowly moving artillery. Two guns of Hart’s horse-battery jolted down through the mist, mounted cannoneers ghostly and gigantic above the bushes.

The first gun and its caisson halted at the water’s edge.

A tall, bony trooper of the 2nd South Carolina, who wore a white Cherokee rose in his buttonhole, was directed to dismount and show the shallowest part of the ford to the gunners.

As he dismounted and led his horse down through the stunted willows, another and smaller figure rode out of the bushes, dismounted, and stumbled along beside him in clumsy boots.

“It’s a night of stars,” whispered the little newcomer, breathlessly.

The tall trooper did not answer.

Down among wet willows they continued, to the water’s edge, the little figure stumbling along beside the tall one, the two guns crushing a slow way through squashy swale and scrub.

“Hyar, suh,” said the tall trooper to the officer commanding Hart’s section, “lays the onliest shallows in this hyar ford. Your drivers should hold to the right of that dead oak.”

The battery commander walked his horse out onto the sandy shore. The two who had piloted him—the tall figure and the short one—turned back into the willows together, dragging their drenched horses.

When the bushes hid them the tall trooper turned swiftly on the other: “God help you, ma’am; I sensed it was you before you gave me the passwords!”

“I knew you by the white rose,” she whispered. “Is the paper petal with my cipher message safely pinned to it?”

“I reckon. Are you in trouble, ma’am?”

“Yes, I am.”

“How do you figure to get out, ma’am?”

“Ride through the ford when the rebel cavalry rush it. I’ve got to.”

“Can’t you get to the mountains?”

“I tried. Stonewall’s men fired on me. They are thick in every pass and path. I had to come down to the river. There was no other road open. Anything is better than being caught and hanged—back there in Martinsburg,” added the girl unsteadily.

“Who ketched you peekin’, ma’am?”

“Belle Boyd, Chancellor, and Captain Gailliard. They found hanging evidence in my bedroom. Gailliard got—hurt. Chancellor is after me. Up on the mountain. I wish somebody would give the signal to cross the river,” she added with a sudden sob of fear.

“Steady, ma’am,” he cautioned her. “A skeered spy is a hanged one.”

“Yes. I’m scared and excited, but I’ll be cooler in a moment.”

“Did you kill Gailliard, ma’am?”

“No.”

“Shoot him, or hawg-stick him, ma’am?”

“No, I hit him in the face with his own pistol, and rode off on his horse. If it gets much lighter down here, somebody may recognize Captain Gailliard’s horse. Or notice the color of my face”—

“We’re going through in a few minutes, ma’am. Keep cool.”

Operator 13, in her slouch hat, boots and Confederate overcoat, gave a desperate glance around her at the foggy bushes.

“Oh, God,” she whispered, “why don’t they hurry!”

Operator 90, who was Federal spy Augustus Littlefield, wearing a white rose on a Confederate uniform of the 2nd South Carolina Cavalry, laid a great, bony, kindly hand on the frightened girl’s shoulder.

“Ma’am,” he said simply, “we’ll both hang if we’re caught. We know that. So we better try to forget it and do our duty ca’m and quiet.”

“Yes,” whimpered the girl, “but I can’t wash off this dark stain on my skin; and if they see a nigger in Confederate uniform it will be the end of me.”

“Ma’am,” said Littlefield, “when the scouts start out across the ford there’ll be firing. You start, too, leading your hoss. And jess as soon as you git to the shore, mount and ride like hell.” He added, “If you’re shot in the back it’s better than dancin’ the sunset jig, ma’am.”

“Yes, it is. I’ll try to get through somehow,” she murmured. She straightened her shoulders and lifted her head defiantly, but it was an effort. She said: “And you’ll try to make contact with Operator 17 in Mercersburg, won’t you?”

“I will, ma’am, if God lets me.”

“It’s Mrs. Edmonds, isn’t it?” she asked. She knew, but she was trying to regain self-command.

“Yes, ma’am, she’s S. S. 17.”

“Tell her I’ll keep on to Chambersburg and telegraph across to the colonel of the 6th Lancers at Frederick,” said the girl, nervously.

Again Gus Littlefield laid a kindly paw on her quivering arm.

“Courage, ma’am. You got a-plenty. I seen you giggle at death. You been in worse pickles nor this. Me, too. We won’t dance no sunset jig this time. No, ma’am. When the rebel rush begins, git onto your ole nag, and ride like a devil!”

A moment’s strained silence, then he climbed slowly into his saddle and started off toward the road where the cavalry were waiting in close column.

As he rode he pulled the white rose from his buttonhole, stuffed it into his breeches pocket, and took his place in the ranks, leaving Federal Secret Service Operator 13, alone in the middle of a Confederate division where, disguised as a Negro laundress, she had personally been known to almost every man in the cavalry camp.

Now, in the dawn dusk which was turning the fog pallid, her pretty, brown-tinted face was not visible in the shade of her slouch hat brim. Even her overcoat and spurred boots would attract no attention because, although new uniforms had arrived from Richmond for some of the cavalry regiments, the Confederate horsemen, en masse, were still somewhat ragged after Antietam; and any kind of clothing was gratefully worn.

But the girl was in extreme danger. If Captain Jack Gailliard of the Confederate Secret Service had been too severely hurt by her to follow her, nevertheless Vespasian Chancellor, the cleverest of Confederate operators and Chief of Scouts, was now searching for her, high and low. He knew, too, that she had ridden off on Gailliard’s own horse. She was in deathly terror of this man whose “instinc’ ” at last had undone her.

She did not know what to do to escape him. She dared not try to join a cavalry regiment and edge into column on the ford road back there among the oaks.

She dared not attempt to join Phillips’s scouts, even in the pale dusk of the river fog.

From where she stood at her horse’s head, among the willows, she could see a camp-servant and two led horses waiting; and she recognized the horses as Lady Margrave and Skylark, two favorite mounts of General Jeb Stuart.

In that case, she realized with a pang of fright, the mounted camp-servant must be Yellow Bob, Stuart’s body servant, who so often had hectored and bullied her and bragged about his own importance.

Here was a new and very deadly danger a few paces away. If Yellow Bob recognized her he would give the alarm—that is, if he had heard what she had done.

It was at that moment that all her latent but peculiar courage returned to her. Every vein in her body reacted to that strange thrill of pleasure which peril excites in those few who are qualified to do efficient work in the shadow of the hangman’s noose.

That biggity mulatto, Yaller Bob! She had fooled him a dozen times a day! She would do it again. She would do more—she would make a fool of him and steal his horses—General J. E. B. Stuart’s two beautiful and favorite horses, Lady Margrave and Skylark!

At the mere idea all the clever, reckless sense of humor in her deliciously suffused her. Death grinned at her. She giggled.

Now all the actress in the girl was in confident and controlled ascendancy. If she spoke to the mulatto and revealed herself, he might or might not have heard that she had been unmasked as a spy; that she had murderously struck down Captain Gailliard and that Chancellor and Miss Boyd were after her.

It was perfectly possible that this news had not reached Yellow Bob, or, perhaps, had not yet been carried to headquarters, what with Chancellor and Belle Boyd galloping the mountain trails where Jackson’s pickets had fired on her as she swung her horse toward headlong escape.

It was a risk—a longer chance than her momentary safety seemed to warrant.

The next instant she made up her mind; took her horse by the head and moved through the willows toward Yellow Bob where he sat his horse, holding the halters of Lady Margrave and pretty Skylark.

“Oh, Bob,” she called softly.

“Who dat?” hissed the mulatto fiercely, turning in his saddle.

“H’it’s on’y li’l Lucille, Bob. H’it’s on’y de Gin’ral’s onliest li’l laun’ress”—

“Whar yuh come f’om?” he whispered in a passion. “Yuh git outen hyah! De Gin’ral ain’t takin’ no laun’ress when he-all ride a raid! Is yuh crazy, chile!”

“Oh, Bob, I’se jess a-honin’ to go—”

“Yuh is crazy,” he hissed. “Ain’t nobody tell you dat Marse Jeb an’ me is a-ridin’ out to fight de Yankees?”

“I’se jess a-honin’ to see yuh fight de Yankees, Bob—”

“Who? Me? Wha’ foh yuh wants to see me fight er battle?”

“Kaze yuh is so han’some an’ brave, Bob. An’ I jess feel lak I gotta follow yuh—”

“Who? Me?” demanded Yellow Bob, bewildered by such a sudden declaration from an exceedingly pretty quadroon who had persistently jeered him and snubbed him in camp.

“Oh, Bob,” she said in her melting voice, “jess lemme follow yuh an’ de Gin’ral’s hosses an’ I’ll be yuh onliest gal all de time lak yuh asked me”—

“Yuh stuck yah li’l pink tongue out at me when I ast yuh to be mah onliest gal”—

“I wuz that skeered, Bob”—

“What de Gin’ral gwine say when he-all see yuh”—

“Ain’t de Gin’ral gotta wear a clean shirt, Bob?”

“Gor a-mighty, who de debbil gwine change he shirt when he fightin’ an’ a-yellin’, an’ a-shootin’ ever’ minute ob de day? ’Splain me dat, yaller gal!”

“Bob, I’se yoh onliest li’l gal, an’ I’se a-gwine along o’yuh, honey!”

Yellow Bob was enormously flattered. That the dusky belle of the camp, sought by every Negro—and, alas!—by almost every white soldier in the division—should at the eleventh hour succumb to his importance and his personal charms filled him with immeasurable pride.

“Gor a-mighty,” he said softly, enchanted by the tribute and happily convinced that he deserved it.

“Whar yuh git dat hoss?” he demanded. “Looks lak I done see dat hoss befo’.”

The girl giggled: “I loves yuh, Bob, an’ I done tuk de fustest hoss I see.”

“Gor a-mighty,” he breathed, rolling his eyes at her and her horse. “Whar yuh git dat clothes, Lucille?” he asked, grinning.

She tossed her head: “Yuh ain’t seen dem boots nowhere befo’,” she began, when suddenly the first splash sounded from the water’s edge and, far in the fog, a pistol flashed.

The next instant she was in the saddle, sidling close up beside Yellow Bob. She could see Lieutenant Phillips run out into the water, followed by two dozen dismounted men, all wading belly deep, splashing toward the unseen shore beyond which now was belted with flashes like floating fireflies in the mist.

The crackle of pistol fire merged into a ragged rattling volley from Federal rifles. With a roaring rush through the fog, Wade Hampton’s horsemen took to the water, followed by Hart’s battery, the straining horses bounding forward through clouds of foam.

Across the river a fight was going on in the fog: Colonel Butler’s 2nd South Carolina Horsemen closing with the Union pickets and vedettes, saber against saber and bayonet. The fog was full of shouting; yells from galloping riders; sharp cries from directing officers; musketry rising to roaring crescendo—then a dropping shot or two—then, suddenly, all sound extinguished.

The Union pickets and vedettes had all been killed, taken, or scattered. Distant scampering hoofs of stampeding horsemen and thunderous, thrashing gallop of Confederate cavalry through churned waters that boiled to the riders’ thighs—these were the only sounds in the gray obscurity, now—these, and a few far shots sent after scattering Federal vedettes of the 12th Illinois Cavalry, riding frantically to warn their Captain Logan that two thousand rebel horsemen were across the Potomac, and hell was breaking loose along the Mercersburg road.

On the downstream edge of the ford the second section of young Pelham’s four-gun horse battery splashed across; the waters washing caisson and gun-carriage hub deep, and drenching the drivers in their saddles. Here the river is very crooked and thrusts northward a deep angle, the base of which rests upon a shore of sand and rock and river willows.

From the apex of this angle, Yellow Bob, racked by sudden and overwhelming love, and bursting with excited self-importance, spurred his lank hunter out into the stream, leading Lady Margrave and Skylark with all the grace and deftness of a perfect Negro horseman. And there are no better riders in the world.

Close at heel through watery obscurity rode “li’l Lucille,” hard put to manage Gailliard’s horse which was part thoroughbred. The poor beast and its rider, half blinded by driving spray and the turmoil of plunging horses, reared and scrambled and shied and bounded about, endangering Yellow Bob and the led horses and causing confusion among the mounted gunners who yelled hearty curses at her and struck at her horse with dripping fists.

In mid-ford Major Pelham sat his horse, waving the mounted gunners right or left, and bringing order out of confusion, his calm young voice scarcely raised, yet perfectly distinct amid the tumult of the wallowing brigades of horsemen.

“Oh, Bob,” he called out pleasantly, “take the down-river edge with the General’s horses and follow the 9th Virginia on the other side!”

“Yaas suh, Major!” bawled Yellow Bob, enchanted at being personally addressed by the most popular man in the army; and he spurred out through shoaling water, Lady Margrave and Skylark galloping gallantly at lead, and little Lucille, still fighting Gailliard’s horse, wrist, knee, and heel, plunging along beside him and up the bank to the Yankee shore.

“Whut I gwine duh, Bob?” she gasped, as they rode out into a plowed field. “I done loss mah lef’ boot in de water!”

Bob turned in his saddle, exasperated, and looked down at her slim little foot in its soaked white cotton stocking.

“Debbil in ebryting dis hyar mawnin’!” he cried. “Debbil in de hosses, debbil in de gunners, debbil in yuh, too. Wha’ fore yuh done come wif dis hyar army, yah li’l debbil? ’Splain me dat!”

“Kaze I loves yuh, honey; I done tole yuh dat. Oh, Bob, is yuh gwine len’ me a lef’ boot?”

They were riding forward across a field, now, in the rear of the 9th Virginia cavalry, pouring in column of fours through a gap in a snake-fence.

“Ain’t got no extry boot,” grunted Yellow Bob, glowering at her.

“Yaas, yuh has, honey,” she insisted in her soft young voice.

The cavalry ahead halted; they could see officers’ arms upflung in signal; a red guidon bobbing forward alongside of the motionless column.

“Whar yuh gwine find a extry boot, Lucille?” he demanded fretfully.

“Whut’s dat yaller boot-top a-stickin’ up outen yoh saddlebag, honey?”

“Dat is mah onliest pair ob extry jockey boots what I done bring to res’ my feet!” He gave her a hostile and selfish look, but wavered when her lovely, distressed, dark-fringed eyes met his.

“Gor a-mighty,” he burst out, “is yuh gwine take mah onliest new bes’ boots, Lucille?”

She rode up closer, put aside his hand, and began to unbuckle the saddlebag on his crupper and peer and pry and rummage.

“How come yuh is totin’ all dis hyar gallus pants an’ jacket an’ yaller-top boots?” she demanded excitedly.

Yellow Bob said solemnly:

“Dis hyar am mah onliest bes’ Sunday meetin’ jockey-clos, Lucille, an’ when I gits to Chambersburg I’se gwine show de Yankees how a quality nigger kin set his saddle when de Gin’ral has a march-past an’ de ban’ plays big an’ banging—”

“Is I gwine set beside yuh wif one boot an’ half naked?” she wailed.

“Kick off dat boot,” he advised her, “an’ ride barefoot lak yuh is mah hoss-boy.”

The girl promptly kicked off her remaining boot, lifted one leg after the other, stripping off the white, wet stockings, and rested her bare brown toes in the stirrups.

Here was a far safer aid to disguise than a single spurred boot, which, in her suddenly extemporized rôle of horse-boy, might have been noticed—boots being a rarity in the Confederacy, and far beyond a Negro stable-lad’s reach.

Far ahead several sabers shot up high in the watery light of daybreak, waved in circles, slanted forward; the gray column moved forward; so did Yellow Bob, Lady Margrave, Skylark, and little Lucille on Captain Gailliard’s horse.

It was ten miles’ steady ride northward to cross the Pennsylvania border. As soon as the cavalry were across, their flanking, foraging wings spread out widely east and west, gathering in Yankee horses and cattle and prisoners from tiny hamlets and scattered farms, from a remote region where there existed neither telegraph nor railroad to dread or to destroy.

All the morning Yellow Bob had been bending every effort to overtake General Jeb Stuart and Headquarters, but regiments and brigades and batteries obstructed him, and, apparently, nobody had instructions to forward a dark gentleman of importance, followed by a barefoot stable-boy and two led horses.

All knew him, of course; many teased him and laughed at him, telling him that, although there was shooting going on in front, it was horses’ hides and not his that caused anybody any anxiety.

This was cruel, because Yellow Bob had already swung a lusty saber in pitched battle, and had behaved like a gallant armor-bearer behind his gay and reckless master in more than one mêlée.

However, they wouldn’t let him through—or, maybe, couldn’t; and he and his led horses and little Lucille—whom the troopers took for some stray stable-lad—found themselves at noon outside Mercersburg, amid swarms of cavalry driving in herd after herd of frightened Pennsylvania horses from the outlying country to east and west.

Here, on a hill, Yellow Bob left her to hold the halters of Lady Margrave and pretty Skylark, in the shade of some maple trees near a deserted barn, and galloped off to make his way into the village below, which was full of Confederate cavalry having their horses shod by astonished but helpless Yankee blacksmiths.

Sitting on the doorless sill of the barn was a bare-legged boy in ragged pants and jacket, staring down at the gray riders in the village.

Now, in bright, pitiless daylight, Operator 13 was becoming frightened again. It seemed certain that some trooper among all these men she knew, and who knew her, would recognize her presently. Certainly, too, by this time, Chancellor or Miss Boyd must have informed headquarters of her detection in Martinsburg, and of her escape.

Where was Vespasian Chancellor? Where was Operator 90, with his white rose? Had Gus Littlefield managed to get free of his 2nd South Carolina Cavalry and carry news of the raid to Mrs. Edmonds? To Averell? To Washington?

The girl shivered in her gray overcoat, where she stood bare-footed in the grass, holding the three halters in nervous fingers.

If Chancellor had joined the raiders, and if he encountered her, he would know her. She could not hope to escape those cruel eyes. That meant a drumhead hanging without any doubt at all.

This was no real disguise—this gray overcoat and slouch hat. And, under her overcoat, she wore her starched white dress of a lady’s maid, and had with utmost difficulty kept it lifted above her waist lest it show under the skirts of the overcoat.

In imagination she could see Vespasian Chancellor’s narrow gaze fastened upon her, and hear his drawling, gentle voice bidding her unbutton her overcoat.

She looked around desperately with a sudden wild design to fling herself into the saddle and ride for her life. And saw in the fields on every side gray-jackets riding, encircling the entire landscape. Then her scared eyes fell upon the ragged, tow-headed boy sitting on the sill of the deserted old barn. It came to her instantly what she ought to do. She had started to do it even before the thought materialized; and already she had begun to lead the three horses toward the gaping barn.

The blond Dutch boy rose as though alarmed when she came close to him. She spoke smilingly and encouragingly; but the scared lad was ready to bolt as she collared him.

“Listen to me,” she said breathlessly, “I am not going to hurt you—”

“I’m afeard of darkies!” he whined, struggling wildly in her clutches; but she shoved him ahead into the depths of the dim barn, dragging her three horses after her.

“Now,” she panted, “give me your clothes!”

He was too terrified to obey. She flung the three bridles around an upright staple, seized the boy, and calmly stripped him to his skin.

“If you yell,” she said, “I’ll do terrible things to you. Go up into that empty haymow and lie down flat on your Dutch back!”

He went up the ladder like a panic-stricken monkey. Operator 13 flung off her overcoat, tore her white starched dress from her, pulled on his ragged shirt, pants, and jacket, and, gathering together her overcoat, dress, and stockings, shoved them into the trough of an empty stall. Then she fastened the halters of Lady Margrave and Skylark, who rolled large, dark, inquiring eyes at her, and led Captain Gailliard’s nervous horse out into the rear yard which was thick with weeds grown taller than her head. Here, under the sagging wreck of an ancient shed, she fastened the horse, confident that no gray-jacket would come foraging into so obviously abandoned a spot. Certain, also, that when the gray cavalry had gone on toward Chambersburg, Gailliard’s horse would make noise enough when hungry and would be discovered by some grateful Pennsylvania Dutchman.

Now she ran back into the barn and darted up the ladder and saw the Dutch boy, stark naked, lying flat in the empty loft, rolling terrified china-blue eyes at her.

“Don’t you dare move until supper time, you silly little boy!” she warned him. “And if you obey me and are good, I won’t come back and bite you to pieces, but I’ll send you a nice, warm overcoat to wear and some cotton cloth to make shirt and breeches out of. Do you hear me?”

“Yaas—yaas’m!” he stammered through chattering teeth.

“Very well.... And maybe I’ll ask God to send you a beautiful horse, too. When the moon is up to-night, tell your father to look around here with a lantern, and maybe God will send him a very beautiful horse.”

She placed a lifted finger across her lips, then shook it warningly at him.

“You promise?”

“Yaas’m,” he whispered.

So Operator 13 descended the rickety ladder and removed it, lowering it to the gaping planks of the floor.

Now she went to the horses, untied them, mounted Skylark bareback, and, sitting him with the ease and confidence of a rider who has nothing more to learn of perfect horsemanship, rode slowly out onto the grass, halted under the maples, and looked down into the turmoil of the captured town of Mercersburg.

The old-time Pennsylvania town swarmed with Confederate cavalry whose gray-jacketed, yellow-sashed officers spoke quietly and courteously to the astonished villagers, paying for everything they took from the shops—groceries, butchers’ meats, shoes, underwear—and tendering Confederate money to the sweating blacksmiths and wagon builders for their forced services and materials.

She could see Wade Hampton’s jaunty horsemen riding in with herds of Pennsylvania horses, with Ayrshire and Belted cattle, and with prisoners in beautiful new blue uniforms—men of Major Meyer’s signal corps, surprised and taken in the fog with their horses, flags, field telegraph instruments and lances, near the Fairview signal tower.

With these signalmen were other disgusted Yankee prisoners from Logan’s 12th Illinois Cavalry; and a number of civilians, too, fetched in under guard, lest they carry news to that huge Union army of General McClellan, surrounding this little column of Rebel riders who were so gayly and recklessly threading the divisional interstices of a hostile army three times their number.

It was high noon in Mercersburg; artillery and cavalry bugles were blowing; Pelham’s agile gunners remounted and moved out, nonchalantly finishing their meager midday meals in their saddles; Rooney Lee’s flanking cavalry spread wide, predatory wings and talons to sweep up every Yankee horse on their northward journey. Headquarters waited, watching the cavalry of “Grumble” Jones mounting along the National Road, and curious to learn whether Jeb Stuart really was going on to Chambersburg or whether he had had enough of it and was turning eastward through Hagerstown and toward the friendly river and safety.

Operator 13, from her little hill, could see the General and his Headquarters staff a little way below her in a small meadow.

They were so near that she could recognize individuals—Engineer Captain Blackford, Captain of Cavalry White, Major von Borcke, Wade Hampton, Butler—and could see Joe Sweeny with his banjo slung across his back, riding his big gray gelding.

Down there, too, was Yellow Bob, bustling about with camp plates and a sizzling frying-pan, and the brigadiers and staff officers were eating in their saddles, but Jeb Stuart ate nothing, standing apart from the others, deep in consultation with a shabby-looking fellow mounted on a gangling racker.

And suddenly the girl recognized Vespasian Chancellor. A pang of purest fright pierced her, chilling, stilling blood and pulse.

There was absolutely nothing to do about it. Skylark’s topmost frantic speed could not carry her through that outer ring of flanking horsemen.

Jeb Stuart looked over his gold embroidered shoulder and, catching his Major’s eye, nodded laughingly.

The next moment Major von Borcke, towering in his saddle, called out something to Yellow Bob and made a jerky gesture northward.

The girl saw the mulatto mount his horse and come galloping up the hill toward the clump of silver maples where she sat Skylark; and the halter in her stained brown hand quivered with fright.

Up the hill galloped Yellow Bob; but when he saw “li’l Lucille,” sitting his General’s “onliest bes’ hoss,” the shock staggered him.

“Gor a-mighty, woman!” he squealed, “wha’ foh is yuh a-settin’ onto dis hyar Skylark hoss! Is yuh went plum crazy?”

“No, suh, Bob,” said the girl tranquilly, “I isn’t crazy no mo’n yuh is! I gotta ride somefin’, isn’t I?”

“Whar yoh hoss, chile?” he almost yelled at her.

“Das what I gwine axe yuh!” she said. “Who done sneak up dis hyar hill an’ steal mah onlies’ li’l hoss while I wuz a-walkin’ an’ a-coolin’ Lady Margrave and Skylark an’ a-watchin’ ’em nibble dis hyar grass?”

“Debbil, debbil!” snarled Yellow Bob; “ef yoh hoss is stole, yuh gotta go home. Yaas, yuh is”—

“How I gwine git home, nigger! Yuh reckon I gwine hoof it mo’n twenty mile wif er millyun Yankee soldiers chasin’ me? Ain’t yuh got no sense? Oh, Bob, ain’t yuh love me no mo’?”

Bob, who had turned a sickly greenish yellow with anger and fear, became a normal golden yellow again.

“What I gwine tell de Gin’ral?” he demanded.

“Ef yuh tell de Gin’ral dat yuh let li’l Lucille come along, I ’spec’ he-all gwine act up mighty high,” she said calmly.

“ ’Low I ain’t fixin’ tuh tell de Gin’ral nothin’,” retorted Bob, rolling anxious eyes.

“Yaas, yuh is,” said the girl coolly. “Ef de Gin’ral axe you how come it a li’l nigger is a-ridin’ Skylark, yuh gwine say I is de bes’ jockey stable-boy in camp to he’p fetch and care fo’ de Gin’ral’s hosses.”

“Whar yuh git dem rags yuh is totin’?” inquired Yellow Bob weakly.

The girl laughed:

“Some one done hook de overcoat an’ de hoss. Does I look lak li’l Lucille in dis hyar pants an’ cotton sh’ut, Bob?” she asked, giggling.

“Yuh look lak yuh wuz a nas’y li’l saucy yaller nigger, das what yuh look lak,” he replied, exasperated. “Debbil, debbil! De debbil’s in yuh; de debbil’s in me; de debbil’s in ev’body—”

“Ef yuh tell anybody dat de li’l laun’ress what soaps de Gin’ral’s onlies’ bes’ shirt is a-ridin’ ’long wif yuh, de Provost gwine hang yuh, Marse Bob!” said the girl, still giggling.

“Ain’t fixin’ to tell nobody nuff’n,” retorted Yellow Bob, sullenly. “How yuh gwine ride wif nuff’n ’scusin’ de halter onto dis hyar Skylark hoss? I ain’t never knowed yuh kin ride, Lucille.”

“Ride better’n yuh-all,” she jeered.

“Whar yuh git so hoss-wise an’ biggity?” he growled. “ ’Pears lak you know a big lot too damn much ’bout ev’thing—”

“Shut yuh damn mouf, Bob!”

“Reckon I’se gotto—twill I kin git a strap to tan yoh bottom—”

“Oh, Bob! Ain’t yuh lovin’ me no mo’?”

“Yaas, I reckon I does. Das why I gwine wa’m yuh good, honey—”

Sweeny rode up the hill: “Bob!” he shouted, “follow headquarters guidon!”—and, swinging his mount, trotted off toward the General and staff whose horses were now moving off at a walk at the head of Hampton’s cavalry.

Beside General Jeb Stuart rode Vespasian Chancellor on his racker; and, as Yellow Bob leading Lady Margrave, followed by Operator 13 on Skylark, fell in just behind Joe Sweeny, the girl heard Chancellor’s quiet voice continuing:

“Hyar’s what I reckon is our situation, General; Yankee infantry marching west of us at five this morning; the Yankee cavalry general, Kenley, sent couriers to Hagerstown whar there’s a hell’s mint o’ Yankees—”

“I’m not going to Hagerstown,” said Stuart quietly.... “But continue, Chancellor.”

“Yaas, suh. Wall, suh, I reckon Colonel Imboden is keeping Averell busy; Pleasanton remains near Knoxville; Stoneman’s riders are plum tuckered over to Frederick whar the Yankee Lancers is—”

“Dick Rush’s Lancers?” inquired Stuart with bright interest concerning his old antagonists at Antietam.

“Yaas, suh.”

“I hope we’ll meet them,” laughed Stuart.... “Well, go on with your report.”

“Tha’s all, suh. Only I duh mistrust all these hyar Yankee scouts and spies and fugitives that is skedaddlin’ north to spread the news of this hyar raid, suh.”

“You think that laundress of mine got clean away north?” inquired Stuart.

“Miss Belle and I couldn’t find hide or hair of her, suh; and Gin’ral Stonewall’s mountain pickets fired at somebody who rode a horse like the one she stole from Captain Gailliard.”

“Well,” said Stuart, “we can’t help it now. Is that all the news you have?”

“No, suh. A trooper of the 2nd South Carolina Cavalry deserted us when we rushed the signal station. I mistrust he was a Yankee spy in our uniform, and that he is gone North.”

After a grim silence Jeb Stuart’s tanned face cleared, his blue eyes sparkled, his golden beard quivered with laughter.

“No use worrying,” he said; “we’re going to Chambersburg, God willing.” He turned in his saddle: “Oh, Joe,” he called back to Sweeny, “give us a little music, if you please!”

Vespasian Chancellor, too, looked around, and his dark, long-slitted gaze swept Yellow Bob and the ragged Negro boy in charge of Lady Margrave and Skylark.

Yellow Bob’s saffron features were familiar to the chief of spies; his keen eyes lingered on Operator 13, glanced at the horses, reverted to the girl with the involuntary and totally unconscious instinct of a great, suspicious, watchful hound. Then Joe Sweeny unslung his banjo, tuned it deftly, ripped from its strings a rippling chord or two, and raised his voice in a song which the lively General took up, and the entire staff began to sing to the enchanting staccato of the ringing banjo:

“I know er pretty li’l gal,

Down Mobile;

Front name’s Honey, hind name’s Sal;

Down Mobile;

Onlies’ rag she got to her back’s

A ole stitch-up sweet-’tater sack;

But lawzee-me, when she give yuh er smack,

H’it tas’e jess lak

A hot honey-bun;

An’ das what she done,

Ez suah’s yuh bohn.

To me in de sun,

A-hoein’ ob de co’n,

She give me er smack,

An’ h’it tas’e jess lak

A sticky honey bee

Wuz a-stingin’ me,

Twill her mouf wuz drippin’

Lak er peach dat’s bit,

An’ ah ’spec’ ah’d die befo’ she quit.

Chorus

“I’se got a pretty li’l gal,

Down Mobile!

Front name’s Honey, hind name’s Sal;

Down Mobile,

Down Mobile!”

Thus rode the laughing General and his staff into Yankee Land to the twang of a banjo and an old Louisiana melody.

Eastward and westward the bird-o’-prey wings of the Northward marching gray brigades swept the Pennsylvania countryside clean of horses and saw no hostile horsemen.

The column proceeded by brigades. In the center of each brigade traveled captured led horses and prisoners.

Once the General turned in his saddle to look around at his favorite led horses, and he said banteringly to Yellow Bob: “I supposed you were clever enough to ride one horse and lead two! Where did you find that little black boy?”

Yellow Bob was too badly scared to reply, and merely rolled ashamed and frightened eyes at everybody who laughed at him. And it passed as a jest—yet Chancellor turned twice to look at the mortified and silent mulatto, and to let his long-shaped, narrow eyes rest with that unconscious “instinc’ ” of his on the slim little ragged Negro lad, riding Skylark with such lithe and careless coördination. Some black jockey, no doubt, as much a part of Southern stables and Southern life as any pickaninny toddling outside the quarters in the sunshine.

Toward dark it began to rain as the column bore to the east, riding through a hamlet called St. Thomas. But it was a little after nine o’clock when the gray-jacketed horsemen entered defenseless Chambersburg where every house blazed with lamps and candles, and a scared group of prominent citizens, already warned by a Federal scout sent flying by Gus Littlefield, awaited in deepest perturbation the advent of rebel raiders.

Stuart spoke to them courteously, suggesting that all good citizens should remain quiet and obey martial law as administered by their new Provost Marshal, Colonel Hairston.

Officers politely requested shelter and food from the townspeople; regiments camped in the Diamond and along the streets.

Wade Hampton was at McClure’s, Pelham at Noel’s house; Grumble Jones at B. Chambers’; the Mansion House was full of field officers; the Franklin Hotel, Bank, Court House, and Town Hall swarmed with them. Hundreds of soldiers were sheltered in the Edgetool factory, brewery, Academy, paper mill, and tannery.

Yellow Bob, his horses, and Operator 13 found a rickety barn to shelter them from the rain.

The girl sat in the dark doorway, eating cold corn-bread and bacon, and watching cavalry details riding out to scour the region for horses.

A ring of alert horsemen surrounded Chambersburg. There was no possible chance for her to get out.

Yellow Bob, mortified by the General’s good-humored jest, angry and chagrined at having lost caste in the girl’s eyes, and deeply troubled as to consequences, had little to say to li’l Lucille—and that little was monosyllabic and resentful—“debbil” being his usual reply or observation, uttered in a savage grunt.

When the horses were watered, fed, rubbed down, and bedded, Yellow Bob, still sulky, lay down in the straw beside his own mount who was not likely to step on him.

Operator 13 walked to the doorway and looked out at the rain.

“Lawzee me,” she said, “all de ridgements is got new close, Bob. Marse Butler’s men is all rigged up in sky-blue overcoats!”

Bob grunted.

“Whar dey git all dem pretty close, hunh?” she demanded.

“Yankee close,” growled Bob.

“Honey, would yuh be so kind to go out git me a new blue overcoat?” she wheedled.

“Git it yuhse’f,” he muttered.

“H’it’s a-rainin’,” she whined.

“Das why I done say, git it yuhse’f, gal.”

“Bob, ain’t yuh love me no mo’?”

“Yuh done got me in trouble. Nuff’n but trouble ebery-where. Debbil in ever’ting. Das what yuh done!”

“I’se gwine out,” she said.

“Whar yuh traipsin’ now?”

“Gwine go find me a blue coat.”

“Hunh,” he grunted, “yuh jess try it!”

She tried it, but was stopped in the street. She had no pass; dared ask for none; was deathly afraid of Wade Hampton, Military Governor pro tem, and in dread of the Provost Marshal.

There was no way to get out of this dark, rain-drenched Pennsylvania town. No way to get news to Averell, or to Colonel Rush’s Lancers. Yet, somehow she had to escape. Death certainly awaited discovery, and discovery was inevitable if she were obliged to continue with the cavalry on their return march and cross the Potomac once more.

Gus Littlefield had said: “Better a bullet in the back, ma’am, than dancing a sunset jig in Dixie.” The “Sunset Dance” was at a rope’s end. Bullets were kinder.

She brooded over this until she was scared cold; then resolutely forced the horror from her mind.

On her way back to the barn she noticed a candle burning in an outhouse behind it, and saw a frugal and very fat citizen in his shirt sleeves, lowering corked jugs into a well, for purposes of concealment from thirsty Confederate cavalrymen.

She could smell applejack, too, fragrantly aromatic in the wet wind.

A clatter of a cavalry patrol in the street sent the thrifty Pennsylvania Dutchman scurrying so fast that he forgot to blow out his candle.

Operator 13, with the innate instinct of vaguest purpose, crept into the latticed well-house, picked up two jugs, and crept out again on noiseless naked feet.

“Bob?” she called softly.

“Shet up, li’l debbil,” he growled.

“Does yuh love toddy?”

“Debbil in yuh, yaller gal! Whar am de toddy?”

“Bob, I done fotch yuh a jug of applejack!”

Yellow Bob sat up quickly: “Is yuh lyin’, Lucille?”

“No, suh.”

He made his way to her in the dark, felt the cool jugs in her hands, clutched at them.

“Gor a-mighty,” he chuckled, “whar yuh steal dis hyar applejack, honey?”

She told him, giggling; and the swift gurgle of the jug blended with her musical giggle.

“Yuh tas’e h’it?” he inquired with kindly impulse, not letting go of either jug.

“One li’l swaller, Bob—”

It was quite enough for her, too, bringing heat to her cheeks and body and chilled feet; and she climbed up into the loft above and, curling up deep in the hay, lay silent, trying to see her way to some clear, safe end before a military court ended her and saved her all trouble of further thinking.

In a little while it became quite plain to her that Yellow Bob was getting drunk.

“Lucille!” he shouted at her, “come down hyar an’ play Ring-around-a-Rosie ’long wif me!”

“Hush yuh fool haid!” she retorted in a strident whisper. “Does yuh want de Gin’ral to heah yuh call me by dat name?”

“No, I doesn’t. Come down, yaller gal!”

His loud voice alarmed her, and she thought it better to descend.

Yellow Bob was dancing around in the dark, singing “Ring-around-a-Rosie”; and suddenly the full danger of his condition dawned on the girl as he seized her, and made her dance in a circle with him at a headlong, dizzying speed. She tried to get loose; his grip held her, and he made her sing with him as they whirled there in utter darkness:

“Ring-around-a-Rosie,

Who’s got the posy?”—

until, weary, breathless, half senseless, one of his hands slipped and she tore the other loose and reeled away.

By sheer luck she landed against the loft ladder, and went up on wavering legs to her hole in the hay.

He yelled for her a while, but couldn’t find her. He was neither very drunk nor beastly yet; he was playful, glorious, boastful, happily delivered of his recent chagrin. He was Yellow Bob, the confidential, intimate, trusted, efficient servant of the greatest general on earth, who could not get along without him.

Operator 13, now thoroughly afraid of him, peered down through a crack in the planks where she lay flat on her stomach in the hay, listening to his singing and shuffling capers, but unable to see him in the darkness.

Suddenly a lantern gleamed at the doorway, and she saw Yellow Bob, dancing “Ring-around-a-Rosie,” jug in hand.

Also, she saw a more terrifying sight—two men—one holding the lantern. He was Vespasian Chancellor. And with him, his head and face bandaged and only his eyes visible, was Jack Gailliard.

When Yellow Bob’s dazzled and flickering gaze could be sufficiently focused to recognize his visitors, he sobered a little and tried to conceal his jug.

“Bob,” drawled the tall Chief of Spies, “whar’s that black boy you fotched along, ridin’ Skylark?”

A sudden pang of fear sobered the mulatto to comprehension of his own danger, and he knew the General’s punishment would be severe if it transpired that he, Yellow Bob, had countenanced and aided this escapade of the pretty quadroon laundress.

“Who yuh mean, suh? Dat no-’count nigger boy outen de stables?”

“I mean him,” said Chancellor. “Where is he? I want to take a look at him.”

“Yaas, suh,” said Yellow Bob promptly. “Dat ornery nigger boy he tuk an’ run down to de town. ’Pears lak he a-honin’ to find him a new blue overcoat—”

“When did he go?”

“Been gone jess a minute, suh—”

“Yuh reckon he’s comin’ back, of course?”

“Dunno, suh. He done behave biggity, an’ I kick an’ cuff him. ’Low I done give dat black debbil plenty Jimmy Crack-corn on de haid an’ shins. Yaas, suh. ’Spec he gwine jine de Jay Hawkers when he git him de sky-blue overcoat”—

“Who is he?” demanded Chancellor.

“Jess a ornary—”

“Whar did you git him, Bob?” interrupted the Chief of Spies.

“He-all jess a jockey, suh, hangin’ roun’ de hosses—”

“How long? I don’t recollect seeing him.”

“All de black hoss-boys looks alike, suh—”

“Come on, Chancellor,” said Jack Gailliard wearily, “there’s nothing in your suspicions.”

“H’it’s mah instinc’ a-workin’, Captain Gailliard, suh—”

“All right. Find my horse and you’ll find the person you’re after. She never came this way. She’s in the mountains, I tell you.”

“Yaas, suh.” But Chancellor lifted his lantern and looked around—at Yellow Bob and his jugs, at Lady Margrave and at Skylark in their bedded stalls, then upward at the haymow above.

“Any soldiers up there sleeping?” he demanded.

“No, suh.”

“How do you know, Bob?”

“I wuz up yander shakin’ down de hay foh mah hosses, suh.”

“I think I’ll step up there”—

“Oh, come on,” said Gailliard, detaining him by one arm.

Chancellor hesitated, his instinct working. Then it grew feebler—or seemed to—for Gailliard drew him to the door; and presently they went away together through the driving rain.

Operator 13 lay like one dead. For the shifting light of the lantern had sent one chance ray through the crack in the planks to which her eyes were glued. Chancellor was looking at the ladder; but Jack Gailliard had seen the light sparkle an instant on her eyeballs; she knew he had seen her by his manner.

And she knew, also, that he had let her go—let her live to take the desperate chance—if any—that remained to her.

Now, stiff and chilled with terror, she lay listening in darkness—she could not know how long—but the hours of sickening fear seemed to stretch into years.

Below in darkness Yellow Bob was getting very, very drunk, but he retained sense enough to let her alone. And, toward dawn, retained no senses at all; for she could see him lying prone in the pale light, beside a pair of empty applejack jugs.

And now, in the thick mist and drizzle of earliest daybreak, the old barn began to shake and tremble with explosions where Confederate cavalry were blowing up storehouses, arsenals, and depots of supplies of the Union Army, and trying to blow up the iron bridge.

Everywhere Jeb Stuart’s bugles were blowing, troopers saddling, mounting, clattering away out of town, bearing to the eastward—guns, gunners, cavalry, squadron crowding squadron—and amid a roar and clatter of hoofs from hundreds of led horses.

Guidons danced by; caissons, limbers, guns jolted briskly through the streets in the pale dusk of dawn.

Operator 13 rose from the hay and crept down the ladder to where Yellow Bob lay dead drunk on applejack.

First she saddled Bob’s horse, then led out Lady Margrave and Skylark into the rank bushes behind the well-house where the same man she had seen before was still furtively fussing with his jugs and ropes and pulleys.

When he looked up and saw her he cringed, afraid, apparently, even of a rebel black boy.

“Come here,” she called softly.

He was too fat to run; he came, slinking, fear-stricken.

“Are you a Union man?” she asked in a low voice.

He seemed incapable of speech, but finally nodded.

“Listen,” she said, “I am a Union spy, disguised as a Negro boy. Is there any way I can ride out of here with these horses and escape to Harrisburg?”

“That wood-road—” he pointed with fat and trembling finger.

“Is it guarded by rebel cavalry?”

“Nobody is in them woods,” he replied hoarsely.

She sat her horse in silence for a while. Gray-jackets were visible, riding flank to the moving column; beyond them vedettes were galloping in from the westward. The rebel cavalry was leaving Chambersburg and riding on—God knew where.

Now through the misty drizzle a tremendous explosion shook the ground and a sheet of fire burst out beyond the highroad.

“There goes fifty thousand Union muskets!” groaned the fat man, wringing his pudgy hands. There were only five thousand, however, that Stuart’s gray-jackets had just blown up. Then came a rock-racking shock and roar and a vast flame as the last Federal depot of Quartermaster’s stores exploded.

A terrible silence cut by clear, gay Confederate bugle calls. Far away to the eastward the girl caught the sound of singing and the faint twang of a banjo.

Without another word Operator 13 clutched the two halters and kicked Yellow Bob’s nag into motion; and Lady Margrave and Skylark followed at a canter into the dusky woodland road.

She had been gone ten minutes, perhaps, and the fat man had returned furtively to his applejack and his well rope, when Vespasian Chancellor rode up on his gangling racker.

“Yuh!” he called out in his soft, dangerous voice, “who made that nigger in the barn daid drunk?”

The fat man, jellified by fear, stammered out that he didn’t know there was a nigger in the barn.

“Whar’s the black boy and the hosses?” asked Chancellor gently. And produced a heavy revolver and cocked it.

“And don’t yuh lie to me, either,” he added, looking at the fat man out of slitted eyes.

“Th-they went that way!” stammered the fellow, and lifted a shaky arm toward the wood-road.

“Yuh lie,” said Chancellor softly. “I reckon I better kill yuh—”

“They did go that way!” screamed the man, “—a nigger boy and three horses—”

“Yuh dirty coward,” said Chancellor, slashing him with a rawhide quirt, “—it’s yuh that oughta hang and not that pore little Yankee gal ridin’ gallant for her life and country!”

Nevertheless, he turned his gangling racker and spurred after her at full gallop.