"He jest come down to the shore an' hollered twicet----"

She bent closer, scanning his dilated eyes; speech died on his lips.

"How did he call to you at _night_?"

"He ain't never called me at night--so help me----"

"No; _but in case he ever wished to fish at night?_"

The man began to stammer and protest, but she covered him suddenly, and her dark eyes struck fire.

"What signal?" she asked with a menacing ring in her voice. "Quick!"

"Cock-o'-the-pines!... It didn't mean nothin'," gasped the man; ... "It was jest private--between fishin' friends----"

"Go on!"

"Yes'm.... If I heard a cock-o'-the-pines squeal I was to squeal back, an' then he was to holler--jest friendly--'Hallo-oo! How's fishin'?'

That's all, ma'am----"

"And you were to cross?"

"Yes'm--jest friendly like. Him an' me was fond o' fishin'----"

"I see. Sit down and don't move. Nobody is going to hurt you."

She went to the door, leisurely uncocking her revolver and pushing it through her belt.

"Oh, Connor," she called carelessly, "please mount my friend Mr. Snuyder on my horse, take him across the ford, and detain him as my guest at headquarters until I return. Wait a second; I'm going to keep my saddlebags with me."

And a few minutes later, as the troopers rode away in the mist with their prisoner, her gentle voice followed them:

"Don't be rough with him, Connor. Say to the colonel that there is no harm in him at all, but keep him in sight until I return; and _don't_ let him go fishing!"

She began housekeeping at sunrise by taking a daring bath in the stream, then, dressing, she made careful inventory of the contents of the house and a cautious survey of the immediate environment.

The premises, so unexpectedly and unwillingly abandoned by its late obese tenant, harbored, besides herself, only one living creature--a fat kitten.

The ferry house stood above the dangerous south bank of the river in a grove of oaks, surrounded for miles by open country.

A flight of rickety, wooden stairs pitched downward from the edge of the grassy bank to a wharf at the water's edge--the mere skeleton of a wharf now, outlined only by decaying stringpieces. But here the patched-up punt was moored; and above it, nailed to a dead tree, the sign with its huge lettering still remained:

RED FERRY HOLLER TWICE

sufficiently distinct to be deciphered from the opposite shore. Sooner or later the fugitive would have to come to the river. Probably the cavalry would catch him at one of the fords, or some rifleman might shoot him swimming. But, if he did not know the fords, and could not swim, there was only one ferry for him; east, west, and north he had long since been walled in. The chances were that some night a cock-o'-the-pines would squeal from the woods across the river, and then she knew what to do.

During those broiling days of waiting she had leisure enough. Seated outside her shanty, in the shade of the trees, where she was able to keep watch both ways--south for her own safety's sake, north for the doomed man--she occupied herself with mending stockings and underwear, raising her eyes at intervals to sweep the landscape.

Nobody came into that heated desolation; neither voice nor gunshot echoed far or near. Day after day the foliage of the trees spread motionless under cloudless skies; day after day the oily river slipped between red mud banks in heated silence. In sky, on earth, nothing stirred except, at intervals, some buzzard turning, high in the blinding blue; below, all was deathly motionless, save when a clotted cake of red clay let go, sliding greasily into the current. At dawn the sun struck the half-stunned world insensible once more; no birds stirred even at sunset; all the little creatures of the field seemed dead; her kitten panted in its slumbers.

Every night the river fog shrouded the land, wetting the parched leaves; dew drummed on the rotting porch like the steady patter of picket-firing; the widow bird's distracted mourning filled the silence; the kitten crept to its food, ate indifferently, then, settling on the Messenger's knees, stared, round-eyed, at the dark. But always at dawn the sun burned off the mist, rising in stupefying splendor; the oily river glided on; not a leaf moved, not a creature. And the kitten slept on the porch, heedless of inviting grass stems whisked for her and the ball of silk rolled past her in temptation.

Half lying there, propped against a tree trunk in the heated shade, cotton bodice open, sleeves rolled to the shoulders, the Special Messenger mended her linen with languid fingers. Perspiration powdered her silky skin from brow to breast, from finger to elbow, shimmering like dew when she moved. Her dark hair fell, unbound; glossy tendrils of it curled on her shoulders, framing a face in which nothing as yet had extinguished the soft loveliness of youth.

At times she talked to the kitten under her breath; sometimes hummed an old song. Memories kept her busy, too, at moments quenching the brightness of her eyes, at moments twitching the edges of her vivid lips till the dreamy smile transfigured her.

But always quietly alert, her eyes scanned land and river, the bank opposite, the open fields behind her. Once, certain of a second's safety, she relaxed with a sigh, stretching out full length on the grass; and, under the edge of her cotton skirt, the metal of a revolver glimmered for an instant, strapped in its holster below her right knee.

The evening of the fourth day was cooler; the kitten hoisted its tail for the first time in their acquaintance, and betrayed a feeble interest in the flight of a white dusk-moth that came hovering around the porch vines.

"Pussy," said the Messenger, "there's bacon in that well pit; I am going to make a fire and fry some."

The kitten mewed faintly.

"I thought you'd approve, dear. Cold food is bad in hot weather; and we'll fry a little cornmeal, too. Shall we?"

The kitten on its small, uncertain legs followed her into one of the only two rooms. The fat tenant of the hovel had left some lightwood and kindling, and pots and pans necessary for such an existence as he led on earth.

The Messenger twisted up her hair and pinned it; then culinary rites began, the kitten breaking into a thin purring when an odor of bacon filled the air.

"Poor little thing!" murmured the Messenger, going to the door for a brief cautionary survey. And, coming back, she lifted the fry pan and helped the kitten first.

They were still eating when the sun set and the sudden Southern darkness fell over woods and fields and river. A splinter of lightwood flared aromatically in an old tin candlestick; by its smoky, wavering radiance she heated some well water, cleaned the tin plates, scoured pan and kettle, and set them in their humble places again.

Then, cleansing her hands daintily, she dried them, and picked up her sewing.

For her, night was the danger time; she could not avoid, by flight across the river, the approach of any enemy from the south; and for an enemy to discover her sitting there in darkness, with lightwood in the house, was to invite suspicion. Yet her only hope, if surprised, was to play her part as keeper of Red Ferry.

So she sat mending, sensitive ears on the alert, breathing quietly in the refreshing coolness that at last had come after so many nights of dreadful heat.

The kitten, too, enjoyed it, patting with tentative velvet paw the skein of silk dangling near the floor.

But it was a very little kitten, and a very lonely one, and presently it asked, plaintively, to be taken up. So the Messenger lifted the mite of fluffy fur and installed it among the linen on the table, where it went to sleep purring.

Outside the open door the dew drummed loudly; moths came in clouds, hovering like snowflakes about the doorway; somewhere in the woods a tiger owl yelped.

About midnight, lying on her sack of husks, close to the borderland of sleep, far away in the darkness she heard a shot.

In one bound she was at the door, buttoning her waist, and listening.

And still listening, she lighted a pine splinter, raised her cotton skirt, and adjusted the revolver, strapping the holster tighter above and below her right knee.

The pulsing seconds passed; far above the northern river bank a light sparkled through the haze, then swung aloft; and she drew paper and pencil from her pocket, and wrote down what the torch was saying:

"Shot fired at Muddy Ford. Look out along the river."

And even as the red spark went out in the darkness a lonely birdcall floated across the river--the strange squealing plaint of the great cock-o'-the-pines. She answered, imitating it perfectly. Then a far voice called: