awakening even old Jack, and went to the barn, where she got the sheep-bell that old Beelzebub used to wear and with the clapper caught in one hand, to keep the bell from tinkling, she went swiftly down the road toward Hurricane Gap.  Several times she had to dart into the bushes while men on horseback rode by her, and once she came near being caught by three men on foot—­all hurrying at Daws Dillon’s order to the Gap through which she must go.  When the road turned from the river, she went slowly along the edge of it, so that if discovered, she could leap with one spring into the bushes.  It was raining—­a cold drizzle that began to chill her and set her to coughing so that she was half afraid that she might disclose herself.  At the mouth of the Gap she saw a fire on one side of the road and could hear talking, but she had no difficulty passing it, on the other side.  But on, where the Gap narrowed—­there was the trouble.  It must have been an hour before midnight when she tremblingly neared the narrow defile.  The rain had ceased, and as she crept around a boulder she could see, by the light of the moon between two black clouds, two sentinels beyond.  The crisis was at hand now.  She slipped to one side of the road, climbed the cliff as high as she could and crept about it.  She was past one picket now, and in her eagerness one foot slipped and she half fell.  She almost held her breath and lay still.

“I hear somethin’ up thar in the bresh,” shouted the second picket.  “Halt!”

Melissa tinkled the sheep-bell and pushed a bush to and fro as though a sheep or a cow might be rubbing itself, and the picket she had passed laughed aloud.

“Goin’ to shoot ole Sally Perkins’s cow, air you?” he said, jeeringly.  “Yes, I heerd her,” he added, lying; for, being up all the night before, he had drowsed at his post.  A moment later, Melissa moved on, making considerable noise and tinkling her bell constantly.  She was near the top now and when she peered out through the bushes, no one was in sight and she leaped into the road and fled down the mountain.  At the foot of the spur another ringing cry smote the darkness in front of her: 

“Halt!  Who goes there?”

“Don’t shoot!” she cried, weakly.  “It’s only me.”

“Advance, ‘Me,’” said the picket, astonished to hear a woman’s voice.  And then into the light of his fire stepped a shepherdess with a sheep-bell in her hand, with a beautiful, pale, distressed face, a wet, clinging dress, and masses of yellow hair surging out of the shawl over her head.  The ill startled picket dropped the butt of his musket to the ground and stared.

“I want to see Chad, your captain,” she said, timidly.

“All right,” said the soldier, courteously.  “He’s just below there and I guess he’s up.  We are getting ready to start now.  Come along.”

“Oh, no!” said Melissa, hurriedly.  “I can’t go down there.”  It had just struck her that Chad must not see her; but the picket thought she naturally did not wish to face a lot of soldiers in her bedraggled and torn dress, and he said quickly: