"Take my horse and hitch him to yonder cannon!" she cried. "He is fresh--he will help you save the piece!"

"Good fer you, young lady!" shouted one of the cannoneers. "We've got friends yet, it seems!" The horse was taken, and the cannon moved on at a swifter pace than ever.

"That was grand of you, Marion!" cried Jack. He knew just how much she thought of the steed she had sacrificed, her pet saddle horse.

And now came several of the hospital corps, carrying the wounded on stretchers, and also several ambulances. In the meantime the shooting came closer and closer, and several sh.e.l.ls sped over the plantation, to burst with a crash in the woods beyond.

"The battle is at hand! G.o.d defend us!" murmured Mrs. Ruthven.

Several Confederates with stretchers were crossing the lawn. On the stretchers lay three soldiers, all badly wounded.

"We can't carry them any further, madam," said one of the party. "Will you be kind enough to take them in?"

"Yes, yes!" cried Mrs. Ruthven. "Bring them in at once. We will do our best for them!" And she summoned the servants to prepare cots on the lower floor, since it would have been awkward to take the wounded upstairs.

The stretcher-carriers were followed by others, until six wounded Confederates lay on cots in the sitting room. A young surgeon was at hand, and he went to work without delay, and Mrs. Ruthven and Marion a.s.sisted.

And now the army was pa.s.sing by the plantation, some on foot, some on horseback, and all exhausted, ragged, covered with dust and dirt, and many badly wounded. The shooting of small-arms had ceased, but the distant cannon still kept booming, and occasionally a sh.e.l.l burst in the vicinity. As the last of the Confederates swept by Jack ran down to the roadway.

"The enemy are coming!" he said, after a long look ahead. "They will be here in less than ten minutes."

Soon the trampling of horses' hoofs was heard, and then came the occasional blast of a trumpet. At last a troop of cavalry swept by, paying no attention to the Ruthven homestead.

The cavalry was followed at a distance by a company of rascally looking guerrillas--followers of every army--who fight simply for the sake of looting afterward.

"To the house!" cried the captain of the guerrillas, a man named Sandy Barnes.

"Company, attention!" cried out Jack, and drew up his command across the lawn in front of the homestead.

"Halt!" shouted Captain Barnes. And then he added; "What are you boys doing here?"

"We are the guard of this house," answered Jack, quietly but firmly.

"Guard nothin'! Out of our way!" growled the guerrilla.

"We will not get out of your way, and you will advance at your peril."

"What, will you boys show fight?" queried the guerrilla curiously.

"We will!" came from the boys. "Keep back!"

"This is private property and must be respected," went on Jack.

"Besides, the house is now a hospital, for there are six wounded Confederates inside, in charge of a surgeon."

The guerrilla muttered something under his breath.

"Come on, anyhow!" shouted somebody in a rear rank. "It looks like a house worth visitin'!"

"Try to enter the house and we will shoot!" went on Jack, his face growing white.

"Why, youngster, you don't know who you are talking to," growled Barnes.

He stepped forward as if to enter the house by a side door, when Jack ran in front of him and raised his sword.

"Not another step, if you value your life!"

"Out of my way, boy!" And now the guerrilla raised his own sword, while some of his men raised their guns.

It was truly a trying moment, and Marion, at the window, looked on with bated breath. "Oh, if Jack should be killed!" she thought.

But now there came a shout from the road, and there appeared a regiment of regular Federal troops. The guerrillas saw them coming, and gazed anxiously at their leader.

"It's Colonel Stanton's regiment!" muttered a guerrilla lieutenant. "He won't stand no nonsense, cap."

"I know it," growled Barnes. "Right face, forward march!" he shouted, and, as quickly as they had come, the guerrillas left the plantation and took to a side road leading to the distant hills.

But the Federal regiment had seen them, and as the guerrillas ran they received a volley which lay several of them low. They were virtually outlaws, and knew it, and lost no time in getting out of sight.

"Halt!" shouted the Federal colonel as he rode up across the lawn, and one after another the companies behind him stopped in their march. Then the Northerner came closer to Jack and the others of the Home Guard.

"What's the matter here? What does this mean?"

Jack gazed up into the face of the Federal colonel and saw that it was an unusually kindly one. "We are defending this home, sir; that's all. I reckon those fellows who just ran off wanted to ransack it."

"The scoundrels! I've been after them twice before. Was anybody hurt?"

"No, sir."

"You are a young Confederate, I presume?"

"I am the captain of these boys. We call ourselves the Home Guard. We wish to protect our homes, that's all."

At this the face of the colonel broke out into a warm smile.

"You do yourself credit, my lad. You could not do better than protect your homes and your mothers and sisters. Whose place is this?"

"Mrs. Alice Ruthven's."

"Did the Confederate battery just retreat past here?"

"I cannot answer that question, sir."

"Well, it doesn't matter much. We have got them on the run, and that was all we wanted for the present."

"I hope you don't intend to do anything to this place," went on Jack anxiously. "It is private property, and, besides, we have six wounded men here, in charge of a surgeon."

"An officer who is a gentleman always respects private property," was the grave answer. "As long as you do nothing treacherous, you have nothing to fear from me or my men." And so speaking, the colonel rode back to the road.