“Yes,” cried his mother.  “Thank God!  I see you are safe also.”

He turned his eyes on his cousin, but in her cold, steady gaze found no encouragement.  With something like an oath, he turned and galloped after the attacking force.

But Scoville did not wait to be attacked.  He continued with his men along the ridge, retreating rapidly when pressed, pausing when pursuit slackened.  The officer in command soon remarked to Whately, “We are using up our horses to no purpose, and we shall need them for more important work later in the day.”

Therefore he sounded recall and retired on the mansion, Scoville following, thus proving that he was governed by other motives than fear.  Indeed, he was in a very genial frame of mind.  He had got all his men off safely, except two or three laggards, and had already sent swift riders to inform his general of the situation.  Knowing that the tables would soon be turned, he was quite content that he had not made an obstinate and useless resistance.  “What’s more,” he thought, “Miss Lou would not have kept out of danger.  It isn’t in her nature to do so.  Miss Lou!  I wish I might call her that some day and then drop the Miss.  One thing is clear.  If I meet that cousin again, he’ll show me no quarter.  So I must look out for him and that assassin of an overseer, too.  She called him by his right name, the brave little girl!  No need of asking me to come back, for I’d go to the ends of the earth to see her again.”

If he had know how her presence of mind and swift action had in all probability saved his life, his feelings would have been far more vivid, while his belief in the luck of throwing an old shoe would have become one of the tenets of his faith.  Miss Lou went after the extemporized missile and put it on again, saying, “I have fired my first and last shot in this war.”

“It is indeed becoming doubtful on which side you are,” answered her uncle sternly.

“I’m not on the side of that wretch Perkins.  Suppose he had succeeded, and Lieutenant Scoville’s general came here, what mercy could we expect?  If Perkins values his life he had better not be caught.”

“I am glad indeed, Louise, that you prevented such a thing from happening,” said Mrs. Whately.  “The result might have been very disastrous, and in any event would have been horrible.  It was a brave, sensible thing to do, and you will find that Madison will think so, too.”

Mad Whately, however, was in anything but a judicial mood.

CHAPTER XIX

A GIRL’S APPEAL

Miss Lou was too well acquainted with, her cousin not to recognize evidences of almost ungovernable rage during the brief moment he had paused at the veranda.  She looked significantly at his mother, whose face was pale and full of an apprehension now uncalled for, since the prospect of an immediate battle had passed away.  “She is afraid of him herself, her own son, and yet she would marry me to him,” the girl thought bitterly.