"Hallo-o-o! How's fishin'?"

She picked up her pine candle, hurried out to the bank and crept cautiously down the crazy, wooden stairs. Setting her torch in the iron cage at the bow, she cast off the painter and, standing erect, swung the long pole. Out into obscurity shot the punt, deeper and deeper plunged the pole. She headed up river to allow for the current; the cool breeze blew her hair and bathed her bared throat and arms deliciously; crimson torchlight flickered crisscross on the smooth water ahead.

Every muscle in her body was in play now; the heavy pole slanted, rose and plunged; the water came clip! slap! clap! slap! against the square bows, dusting her with spray.

On, on, tossing and pitching as the boat hit the swift, deep, center current; then the pole struck shallower depths, and after a while her torch reddened foliage hanging over the northern river bank.

She drove her pole into the clay as the punt's bow grated; a Federal cavalryman--a mere lad--muddy to the knees, brier-torn, and ghastly pale, waded out through the shallows, revolver in hand, clambered aboard, and struck the torch into the water.

"Take me over," he gasped. "Hurry, for God's sake! I tell you----"

"Was it you who called?"

"Yes. Snuyder sent you, didn't he? Don't stand there talking----"

With a nervous stroke she drove the punt far out into the darkness, then fell into a measured, swinging motion, standing nearer the stern than the bow. There was no sound now but the lapping of water and the man's thick breathing; she strove to pierce the darkness between them, but she could see only a lumpish shadow in the bow where he crouched.

"I reckon you're Roy Allen," she began, but he cut her short:

"Damn it! What's that to you?"

"Nothing. Only Snuyder's gone."

"When?"

"Some days ago, leaving me to ferry folk over.... He told me how to answer you when you called like a cock-o'-the-pines."

"Did he?" The voice was subdued and sullen.

For a while he remained motionless, then, in the dull light of the fog-shrouded stars she saw him face her, and caught the faint sparkle of his weapon resting on his knees, covering her.

"It seems to me," he said fiercely, "that you are asking a good many questions. Which side pays you?"

They were tossing now on the rapid little waves in the center of the river; she had all she could do to keep the punt steady and drive it toward the spot where, against the stars, the oaks lifted their clustered crests.

At the foot of the wooden stairs she tied her boat, and offered to relight the pine knot, but he would not have it and made her grope up the ascent before him.

Over the top of the bank she led him, under the trees, to her door, he close at her heels, revolver in hand. And there, on the sill, she faced him.

"What do you want here?" she asked; "supper?"

"Go into the house and strike a light," he said, and followed her in.

And, as she turned from the blazing splinter, he caught her by the arm, feeling roughly for a concealed weapon. Face aflame, she struggled out of his clutch; and he was as red as she as they confronted one another, breathing heavily.

"I'm sorry," he stammered. "I'm--h-half-crazed, I think.... If you're what you look, God knows I meant you no insult.... But--but--their damned spies are everywhere. I've stood too much--I've been in hell for two weeks----"

He wiped his mouth with a trembling, raw hand, but his sunken eyes still glared and the pallor once more blanched his sunken face.

"I'll not touch you again," he said hoarsely; "I'm not a beast--not _that_ kind. But I'm starving. Is there anything--_anything_, I tell you? I--I am not--very--strong."

She looked calmly into the ravaged, but still boyish features; saw him swing, reeling a little, on his heels as he steadied himself with one hand against the table.

"Sit down," she said in a low voice.

He sank into a chair, resting the hand which clutched the revolver on the table.

Without a word she went about the business of the moment, rekindled the ashes, filled the fry pan with mush and bacon. A little while afterwards she set the smoking food before him, and seated herself at the opposite side of the table.

The boy ate wolfishly with one hand; the other seemed to have grown fast to the butt of his heavy weapon. She could have bent and shot him under the table had she wished; she could have taken him with her bare hands.

But she only sat there, dark, sorrowful eyes on him, and in pity for his certain doom her under lip trembled at intervals so she could scarcely control it.

"Is there a horse to be had anywhere near here?" he asked, pausing to swallow what his sunken jaws had been working on.

"No; the soldiers have taken everything."

"I will pay--anything if you'll let me have something to ride."

She shook her head.

He went on eating; a slight color had come back into his face.

"I'm sorry I was rough with you," he said, not looking at her.

"Why were you?"

He raised his head wearily.

"I've been hunted so long that I guess it's turned my brain. Except for what you've been good enough to give me, I've had nothing inside me for days, except green leaves and bark and muddy water.... I suppose I can't see straight.... There's a woman they call the Special Messenger;--I thought they might have started her after me.... That shot at the ford seemed to craze me.... So I risked the ferry--seeing your light across--and not knowing whether Snuyder was still here or whether they had set a guard to catch me.... It was Red Ferry or starve; I'm too weak to swim; I waited too long."

And as the food and hot tea warmed him, his vitality returned in a maddened desire for speech after the weeks of terror and silence.

"I don't know who you are," he went on, "but I guess you're not fixed for shooting at me, as every living thing seems to have done for the last fortnight. Maybe you're in Yankee pay, maybe in Confederate; I can't help it. I suppose you'll tell I've been here after I'm gone....

But they'll never get me now!" he bragged, like a truant schoolboy recounting his misdemeanor to an awed companion.

"Who are you?" she asked very gently.

He looked at her defiantly.

"I'm Roy Allen," he said, "of Kay's Cavalry.... If you're fixing to tell the Union people you might as well tell them who fooled 'em!"

"What have you done?"

She inquired so innocently that a hint of shame for his suspicion and brutality toward her reddened his hollow cheeks.

"I'll tell you what I've done," he said. "I've taken to the woods, headed for Dixie, with a shirtful of headquarter papers. That's what I've done.... And perhaps you don't know what that means if they catch me. It means hanging."

"Hanging!" she faltered.