“About two o’clock or so we passed a house, just a cabin, but a neat sort of place, and I looked at it as I did at everything, and saw an old negro with grizzled hair standing some distance in front of it.  Now everything reminded me of that girl because she was on my mind, and instantly I was struck with the idea, that the old fellow looked like the servant who had been locking the bag in the house by Germania Ford.  I wasn’t sure it was the same darky, but I thought I’d see.  There was a patch of woods back of the house, and I ordered the party to wait there till I joined them, and I threw my bridle to a soldier and turned in at the gate.  The man loped out for the house, but I halted him.  Then I went along past the negro to the cabin, and opened the door, which had been shut tight.

“There was a table littered with papers in the middle of the room, and behind it, in a gray riding-habit, with a gray soldier-cap on her red hair, writing for dear life, sat the girl.  She lifted her head quick, as the door swung open, and then made a jump to get between me and the table.  I took off my cap, and said I: 

“’I’m very glad to see you.  I was just wondering if we’d ever meet again.’  She only stared at me.  Then I said:  ’I’m sorry, but I’ll have to ask you for those papers.’  I knew by the look of them that they were some sort of despatches.

“At that she laughed in a kind of a friendly, cocksure way.  She wasn’t afraid of anything, that girl.  ‘No,’ she threw at me—­just like that—­’No.’” The General tossed back his big head and did a poor imitation of a girl’s light tone—­a poor imitation, but the way he did it was winning. “‘No,’ said she, shaking her head sidewise.  ’You can’t have those papers—­not ever,’ and with that she swept them together and popped them into a drawer of the table and then hopped up on the table and sat there laughing at me, with her little riding-hoots swinging.  ’At least, unless you knock me down, and I don’t believe you’ll do that,’ said she.

“Well, I had to have those papers.  I didn’t know how important they might be, but if this girl was sending information to the Southern commanders I was inclined to think it would be accurate and worth while.  It wouldn’t do not to capture it.  At the same time I wouldn’t have laid a finger on her, to compel her, for a million dollars.  I stood and stared like a blockhead for a minute, at my wit’s end, and she sat there and smiled.  All of a sudden I had an idea.  I caught the end of the table and tipped it up, and off slid the young lady, and I snatched at the knob of the drawer, and had the papers in a second.

“It was simple, but it worked.  Then it was her turn to look foolish.  Of course she had a temper, with that colored hair, and she was raging.  She looked at me as if she’d like to tear me to pieces.  There wasn’t anything she could say, however, and not lose her dignity, and I guess she pretty nearly exploded for a minute, and then, in a flash, the joke of it struck her.  Her eyes began to dance, and she laughed because she couldn’t help it, and I with her.  For a whole minute we forgot what a big business we were both after, and acted like two children.