Just then the boys came rushing in from taking the horses to the stable. They made a dive toward the fire to warm their little chapped hands.

"I told you Hugh warn't as tall as the General," said Frank, across the hearth to w.i.l.l.y.

"Who said he was?"

"You!"

"I didn't."

"You did."

They were a contradictory pair of youngsters, and their voices, pitched in a youthful treble, were apt in discussion to strike a somewhat higher key; but it did not follow that they were in an ill-humor merely because they contradicted each other.

"What _did_ you say, if you didn't say that?" insisted Frank.

"I said he _looked_ as if he _thought_ himself as tall as the General," declared w.i.l.l.y, defiantly, oblivious in his excitement of the eldest brother's presence. There was a general laugh at Hugh's confusion; but Hugh had carried an order across a field under a hot fire, and had brought a regiment up in the nick of time, riding by its colonel's side in a charge which had changed the issue of the fight, and had a sabre wound in the arm to show for it. He could therefore afford to pa.s.s over such an accusation with a little tweak of w.i.l.l.y's ear.

"Where's Cousin Belle?" asked Frank.

"I s'peck she's putting on her fine clothes for the General to see.

Didn't she run when she heard he was here!"

"w.i.l.l.y!" said his mother, reprovingly.

"Well, she did, Ma."

His mother shook her head at him; but the General put his hand on the boy, and drew him closer.

"You say she ran?" he asked, with a pleasant light in his eyes.

"Yes, sirree; she did _that_."

Just then the door opened, and their Cousin Belle entered the room.

She looked perfectly beautiful. The greetings were very cordial--to Hugh especially. She threw her arms around his neck, and kissed him.

"You young hero!" she cried. "Oh, Hugh, I am so proud of you!"--kissing him again, and laughing at him, with her face glowing, and her big brown eyes full of light. "Where were you wounded? Oh! I was so frightened when I heard about it!"

"Where was it? Show it to us, Hugh; please do," exclaimed both boys at once, jumping around him, and pulling at his arm.

"Oh, Hugh, is it still very painful?" asked his cousin, her pretty face filled with sudden sympathy.

"Oh! no, it was nothing--nothing but a scratch," said Hugh, shaking the boys off, his expression being divided between feigned indifference and sheepishness, at this praise in the presence of his chief.

"No such thing, Miss Belle," put in the General, glad of the chance to secure her commendation. "It might have been very serious, and it was a splendid ride he made."

"Were you not ashamed of yourself to send him into such danger?" she said, turning on him suddenly. "Why did you not go yourself?"

The young man laughed. Her beauty entranced him. He had scars enough to justify him in keeping silence under her pretended reproach.

"Well, you see, I couldn't leave the place where I was. I had to send some one, and I knew Hugh would do it. He led the regiment after the colonel and major fell--and he did it splendidly, too."

There was a chorus from the young lady and the boys together.

"Oh, Hugh, you hear what he says!" exclaimed the former, turning to her cousin. "Oh, I am so glad that he thinks so!" Then, recollecting that she was paying him the highest compliment, she suddenly began to blush, and turned once more to him. "Well, you talk as if you were surprised. Did you expect anything else?"

There was a fine scorn in her voice, if it had been real.

"Certainly not; you are all too clever at making an attack," he said coolly, looking her in the eyes. "But I have heard even of _your_ running away," he added, with a twinkle in his eyes.

"When?" she asked quickly, with a little guilty color deepening in her face as she glanced at the boys. "I never did."

"Oh, she did!" exclaimed both boys in a breath, breaking in, now that the conversation was within their range. "You ought to have seen her.

She just _flew_!" exclaimed Frank.

The girl made a rush at the offender to stop him.

"He doesn't know what he is talking about," she said, roguishly, over her shoulder.

"Yes, he does," called the other. "She was standing at the foot of the steps when you all came, and--oo--oo--oo--" the rest was lost as his cousin placed her hand close over his mouth.

"Here! here! run away! You are too dangerous. They don't know what they are talking about," she said, throwing a glance toward the young officer, who was keenly enjoying her confusion. Her hand slipped from w.i.l.l.y's mouth and he went on. "And when she heard it was you, she just clapped her hands and ran--oo--oo--umm."

"Here, Hugh, put them out," she said to that young man, who, glad to do her bidding, seized both miscreants by their arms and carried them out, closing the door after them.

Hugh bore the boys into the dining-room, where he kept them, until supper-time.

After supper, the rest of the family dispersed, and the boys' mother invited them to come with her and Hugh to her own room, though they were eager to go and see the General, and were much troubled lest he should think their mother was rude in leaving him.

CHAPTER XIV.

The next day was Sunday. The General and Hugh had but one day to stay.

They were to leave at daybreak the following morning. They thoroughly enjoyed their holiday; at least the boys knew that Hugh did. They had never known him so affable with them. They did not see much of the General, after breakfast. He seemed to like to stay "stuck up in the house" all the time, talking to Cousin Belle; the boys thought this due to his lameness. Something had occurred, the boys didn't understand just what; but the General was on an entirely new footing with all of them, and their Cousin Belle was in some way concerned in the change. She did not any longer run from the General, and it seemed to them as though everyone acted as if he belonged to her. The boys did not altogether like the state of affairs. That afternoon, however, he and their Cousin Belle let the boys go out walking with them, and he was just as hearty as he could be; he made them tell him all about capturing the deserter, and about catching the hogs, and everything they did. They told him all about their "Robbers' Cave," down in the woods near where an old house had stood. It was between two ravines near a spring they had found. They had fixed up the "cave" with boards and old pieces of carpet "and everything," and they told him, as a secret, how to get to it through the pines without leaving a trail. He had to give the holy pledge of the "Brotherhood" before this could be divulged to him; but he took it with a solemnity which made the boys almost forgive the presence of their Cousin Belle. It was a little awkward at first that she was present; but as the "Const.i.tution"

provided only as to admitting men to the mystic knowledge, saying nothing about women, this difficulty was, on the General's suggestion, pa.s.sed over, and the boys fully explained the location of the spot, and how to get there by turning off abruptly from the path through the big woods right at the pine thicket,--and all the rest of the way.

"'Tain't a 'sure-enough' cave," explained w.i.l.l.y; "but it's 'most as good as one. The old rock fire-place is just like a cave."

"The gullies are so deep you can't get there except that one way,"

declared Frank.

"Even the Yankees couldn't find you there," a.s.serted w.i.l.l.y.

"I don't believe anybody could, after that; but I trust they will never have to try," laughed their Cousin Belle, with an anxious look in her bright eyes at the mere thought.

That night they were at supper, about eight o'clock, when something out-of-doors attracted the attention of the party around the table. It was a noise,--a something indefinable, but the talk and mirth stopped suddenly, and everybody listened.