“Madame,” he said, and now his tone was as fierce as hers had ever been, “where is the rifle?”

She made no attempt to release her hand, nor did she move at all, save to lift her head.  Then her eyes, hard, defiant and ruthless, looked into his.  But his look did not flinch from hers.  He knew, and, knowing, he meant to act.

“Madame,” he repeated, “where is the rifle?  It is useless for you to deny.”

“Have I denied?”

“No, but where is the rifle?”

He was wholly unconscious of it, but his surprise and excitement were so great that his hand closed upon hers in a strong muscular contraction.  Thrills of pain shot through her body, but she did not move.

“The rifle!  The rifle!” repeated Dick.

“Loose my hand, and I will give it to you.”

His hand fell away and she walked to the end of the room where a rug, too long, lay in a fold against the wall.  She turned back the fold and took from its hiding place a slender-barreled cap-and-ball rifle.  Without a word she handed it to Dick and he passed his hand over the muzzle, which was still warm.

He looked at her, but she gave back his gaze unflinching.

“I could not believe it, were it not so,” he said.

“But it is so.  The bullets were not aimed well enough.”  Dick felt an emotion that he did not wholly understand.

“Madame,” he said, “I shall take the rifle, and again say good-by.  As before, I wish you well.”

She resumed her seat in the chair and took up the knitting.  But she did not repeat her wish that Dick and all his men be shot before night.  He went out in silence, and gently closed the door behind him.  In the hall he met Sergeant Whitley and said: 

“We needn’t look any farther.  I know now that the man has gone and we shall not be fired upon again from this house.”

The sergeant glanced at the rifle Dick carried and made no comment.  But when they were riding away, he said: 

“And so that was it?”

“Yes, that was it.”

CHAPTER III

OVER THE HILLS

Dick and his little troop rode on through the silent country, and they were so watchful and thorough that they protected fully the right flank of the marching column.  One or two shots were fired, but the reports came from such distant points that he knew the bullets had fallen short.

But while he beat up the forests and fields for sharpshooters he was very thoughtful.  He had a mind that looked far ahead, even in youth, and the incident at the house weighed upon him.  He foresaw the coming triumph of the North and of the Union, a triumph won after many great disasters, but he remembered what an old man at a blacksmith shop in Tennessee had told him and his comrades before the Battle of Stone River.  Whatever happened, however badly the South might be defeated, the Southern soil would still be held by Southern people, and their bitterness would be intense for many a year to come.  The victor forgives easily, the vanquished cannot forget.  His imagination was active and vivid, often attaining truths that logic and reason do not reach, and he could understand what had happened at the house, where the ordinary mind would have been left wondering.