^ 
 

The V ;i#if)<5iri i Vinise# : inf<Jer* white flap: rode beside her 
 
THE VAGABOND 
 
 By 
 
 FREDERICK PALMER 
 
 Dlustrated by 
 HARRISON FISHER 
 
 CHARLES SCRIBNER S SONS 
 
 NEW YORK : s : : : : : 1909 
 
COPYRIGHT, 1903, BY 
 COLLIER S WEEKLY 
 
 COPYRIGHT, 1903, BY 
 CHARLES SCRIBNER S SONS 
 
 Published, September, 1903 
 
CONTENTS 
 
 PAOB 
 
 L A CRUST MAY BE SWEET ...... 1 
 
 II. FOUR OF THE Six INCHES ...... 18 
 
 III. AND FOUR PROVE ENOUGH ..... 24 
 
 IV. IF You HOLD YOUR HEAD HIGH .... 33 
 V. AND SMILE AT OGRES ...... 43 
 
 VI. OR STIFF OLD DRILL SERGEANTS .... 55 
 
 VII. UNLESS THEY TAKE TO REASONING ... 66 
 
 VIII. WHEN You MUST START AFRESH .... 78 
 
 IX. FEARING NOT A JUDICIAL MIEN .... 84 
 
 X. BUT MEETING LOGIC WITH FAITH .... 90 
 
 XI. THAT WINS You A PASSAGE ..... 98 
 
 XII. To THE RAINBOW S END ...... 110 
 
 XIII. WHICH is PLACER, NOT QUARTZ . . . .118 
 
 XIV. ENTER JIMMY POOL ....... 127 
 
 XV. IMPULSE BETRAYS A SECRET . . . . . 137 
 
 XVI. THE MISTS ON THE PLAIN ...... 141 
 
 XVII. Miss FELICIA AS AN AUNT ..... 149 
 
 XVIII. His HORSE CASTS A SHOE ...... 157 
 
 XIX. THE SHADOW OF WAR ...... 166 
 
 XX. WITH EVERY MAN S DUTY PLAIN . . . .181 
 
 XXI. To HER DOOR BY FORCE ...... 188 
 
 XXII. FOLLY TAKES BREAKER S PLACE .... 203 
 
 XXIII. WAR SHOULD BE IMPERSONAL ..... 217 
 
 V 
 
 o f* 
 
CONTENTS 
 
 PAGE 
 
 XXIV. A TARGET FOR HER SAKE 223 
 
 XXV. FATHER BOB ILLUSTRATES 235 
 
 XXVI. BULLETS HAVE No SENTIMENT .... 242 
 
 XXVII. AT LAST A CHARGE 247 
 
 XXVIII. NOT THE SAME FELICIA 258 
 
 XXIX. NEEDING AN EXCUSE 274 
 
 XXX. HE TELLS His STORY 283 
 
 XXXI. A RULE OF WAR 295 
 
 XXXII. "You, AGAIN! : 303 
 
 XXXIII. IN HER KEEPING 311 
 
 XXXIV. DEEPER THAN SHE THOUGHT . . . .318 
 XXXV. THE GENERAL DRINKS ALONE . . . .323 
 
 XXXVI. SOUTHBRIDGE APPEARS 328 
 
 XXXVII. WHEN THE BACK-LOG FELL . . . .337 
 
 XXXVIII. SABRE TO SABRE 348 
 
 XXXIX. UNCERTAINTY 361 
 
 XL. THE LONG WAIT 373 
 
 XLI. A SERVANT OF THE LANLEYS .... 383 
 
 XLII. A RECOGNITION 390 
 
 XLIII. WHICH HAS LIMITS 401 
 
 XLIV. To RISK is TO PAY 409 
 
 XLV. WHEN LIFE CALLS 415 
 
 XLVI. To LIE AND LIE WELL 423 
 
 XLVII. JIMMY RECONSIDERS 431 
 
 XLVIII. MARCUS, THE STRATEGIST 441 
 
 XLIX. A CHOICE OF FUTURES 454 
 
 L. BACK TO LANLEYTON , . 463 
 
THE VAGABOND 
 
 PART I 
 I 
 
 A CEUST MAY BE SWEET 
 
 You of the East know the house, a type of the 
 first quarter of the late century, as do you of the 
 West who have retraced your own or your father s 
 brave migratory steps. It stands some distance back 
 from the road, repelling gossip with passers-by, a 
 monument to a man who invited an early grave for 
 the sake of his posterity. Firs and elms shade the 
 porch where the builder never sat except on warm 
 Sunday afternoons, when he rested by worrying 
 about the crops. If it is in good repair, then either 
 all the sons have not been scattered by the four 
 winds of industrial change or some "hired man" of 
 Jim Hawkins s type has had his turn at grubbing the 
 hill-side for a rise in the world. If the bricks are 
 tumbling from the spreading chimney-top; if the 
 steps have rotted and fallen away; if the ridges of the 
 clapboards are so many brown, weather-worn lines, in 
 a land where youth passes into age which begets new 
 youth swiftly and confidently, then it is only dismal: 
 a little too common between the Alleghenies and the 
 Atlantic to be pathetic, unless it happens that you 
 
 1 
 
VAGABOND 
 
 were born there and your misfortunes tell you that 
 of all that the close-fisted man planted, only the trees 
 thrive. 
 
 In the forties when the boy dwelt there, no hand 
 was lifted to stay the swift ruin of that homestead 
 which concerns us only so far as it outlines the in 
 ception of a vagabond s fancy. He recalled indis 
 tinctly a pilgrimage from some distant place with 
 Ann. Thin, angular, undemonstrative, with auto 
 matic precision she bathed him, fed him, and put him 
 to bed. He thought of her as nevoi smiling, as only 
 blinking like the sedate andirons in front of the fire 
 place. Not until the day of her departure, when he 
 was five, did she show any sentiment beyond the 
 woodeny "Lay me down to sleep" that she had taught 
 him. Jim Hawkins s buckboard was at the side door ; 
 her hair-trunk was under the seat, and her tongue 
 was once more her own, when she suddenly threw her 
 arms around her late charge, smothering in a 
 motherly kiss her cry that he was a poor little dear. 
 A big hand swept between them. Ann, frightened 
 at her temerity, hastily stepped into the buckboard 
 without looking back as Hawkins drove away. A 
 voice from above the big hand, which had returned 
 to its listless attitude in the trousers pocket at about 
 the height of the boy s head, drawled: 
 "William, that s the last of the women." 
 Thitherto, as he recalled it in later years, the boy s 
 idea of his father had been of something large and 
 indefinite, as a ship bulking through a fog. In the 
 flash of a camera s shutter a new impression of frigid 
 detail, as clear as the outlines of a leafless tree against 
 the snow, was formed for all time. He saw the wreck 
 
 2 
 
THE VAGABOND 
 
 of a fine, tall figure, slouching and stooping, in a 
 rusty suit; a high nose, thin at the bridge and thin 
 at the nostrils; a thin-lipped mouth with drooping 
 corners ; a lump of a chin diml j outlined through an 
 untrimmed, sparse beard, which began well below the 
 cheek-bones; the whole furrowed and criss-crossed too 
 deeply for its age by self-indulgence, ill-sitting pride, 
 disappointment, and indecision, and yet somewhat re 
 deemed by the high, capacious forehead, which was 
 at best only a storehouse. 
 
 In that moment when, after one of his brief and 
 rare splurges of resolute action, the elder s mind had 
 flown to some wandering recollection, William Will 
 iams, Jr., slipped away unobserved and ran to the 
 front door and called to the passing buckboard: 
 
 "Good-by, Ann! You were good, oh, so good, if 
 you always were so sober. Good-by, Annl I love 
 you!" 
 
 Hawkins drove on mercilessly at a trot. Poor 
 Ann s face lighted as it had not during her whole 
 period of service. She partly rose in her seat and 
 called back in gulps: 
 
 "I had to be that way to keep my place and get 
 my pay! The sunshine wuz there when you wuz 
 there. You wait you wait! You shed your mis 
 ery like the duck does the rain. You wait till you re 
 big enough and then you run away you run away" 
 the last words came with the terror of conscience- 
 driven courage. 
 
 "I will!" the boy said, decidedly, as much to him 
 self as to Ann, who was already out of hearing. 
 
 In such a setting, poetic justice may demand that 
 young William should have had deep, soulful eyes, 
 
 3 
 
THE VAGABOND 
 
 wan cheeks, and a peaked chin, with a head too 
 heavy for its supporting column; that he should have 
 been an unsuccessful dreamer, who would make life 
 a weary course, with sad reflections on self at every 
 step. He was nothing of the kind; was to be noth 
 ing of the kind, no matter how thick the shafts of 
 adversity. When Tragedy precipitated him into the 
 world she must have been repentant and envious of 
 the cheer which finds its crust as sweet as the 
 promise of the cake it aims to win. 
 
 Well might his father, looking into the mirror and 
 then at his son, have cried out that he had an alien 
 at his board as he had, except in blood. For young 
 William was equipped with a chin; his nose was 
 short; his head round, and two bumps of perception 
 and quizzical fancy overhung his keen, dancing eyes 
 of a blue that does not fade. Under the gas-light of 
 a drawing-room they might have seemed too solid 
 and prominent of color. In the open, in a great 
 emergency, they promised to be as tranquil as the 
 midsummer sky. And the more the offspring was 
 unlike the parent, the more the parent, if he had such 
 a thing as a consistent object, wanted to make him 
 like. 
 
 The son was still watching the cloud of dust rolling 
 along between the two fences of the highway when 
 his father materialized at his side and turned him 
 around with an abrupt pressure on the shoulder. 
 
 "This is a man s house now!" he almost shouted; 
 which was saying that it was less than a woman s, 
 not even a boy s. "Come! I ll have no petticoats 
 teaching you, but you ve got to learn." 
 
 He led him into the library, and, placing him on 
 4 
 
THE VAGABOND 
 
 a high-backed chair next to the wall, began a cate 
 chism on the spelling of short words. 
 
 "That s enough now/ he said, after an hour or 
 more. " You ll begin your Latin next year." 
 
 William had borne the trial patiently, struggling 
 hard with the tri-syllables to escape censure. He 
 had already learned the folly of putting unscholas- 
 tic questions. Yet now, in juvenile wonder, as the 
 idea came to him, he asked on the impulse: 
 
 "Father, did you ever laugh?" 
 
 William, Sr., put up his hands spasmodically, and 
 looked everywhere except at William, Jr. 
 
 "Yes, oh, yes, I have, fool that I was!" he re 
 plied, tragically; and, seizing his hat and stick, he 
 rushed out of the house. From the window the boy 
 saw him going across the fields in great strides, driv 
 ing his stick into the ground with every step, as if 
 pinioning so many hated recollections. 
 
 His story was an old one, exceptional only in the 
 way he took it. Because he had been "smart" at 
 books he had been given a "grand" education to 
 make him superior to his surroundings. Alas! he 
 had taken the intention for the fact, and gone to the 
 city in the full swing of petty confidence. The city 
 had dealt him one of those broadsword blows with 
 which the Deity of striving numbers tests those 
 whom she tries for high places, and this candidate 
 retreated to nurse his wound with the lasting irritant 
 of his chagrin. 
 
 All this the neighbors knew and took it for fuel 
 for sarcasm or for felicitations to the fortune of the 
 first Williams in having died before it came about. 
 They also knew that it was none of their business 
 
 5 
 
THE VAGABOND 
 
 when it came to the point of being a good thing for 
 Jim Hawkins. Jim was the only human being with 
 whom the father ever spoke, though if in the humor 
 he might nod to anyone whom he met in the road 
 when he went to Jim s to get pastry and clean linen, 
 which were a part of the earning power of thin, stoop- 
 shouldered Mrs. Hawkins. 
 
 Jim s squat two stories, with its great barn adjoin 
 ing, was the only house visible, the only one, besides 
 his own, that the boy had ever seen except in books. 
 Beyond it was a knoll which hid the village and the 
 rest of the world. To the north were the woods, and 
 in all directions were fields of snow in winter, fields 
 of green in spring, and fields of gold in autumn. Ex 
 panses and bold, clear strokes rather than etchings 
 appealed to him. He loved the snow, the green, and 
 the gold; he loved even more the dome of the sky 
 when it was a still blue ; and he loved most a thunder 
 storm, when he would press his face against the win 
 dow-pane and smile delightedly over each clap, while 
 his father, in a corner, instinctively flinched. Above 
 all things, he hated a drizzling, rainy day, which re 
 minded him of his father s scraggly beard, obscuring 
 the hills as the beard did the chin. A great pine on 
 the edge of the woods, clean-trunked to a height of a 
 hundred feet, pointed a finger majestically toward 
 the west. This was his favorite object on the land 
 scape. Near its roots ran a stream, rollicking past 
 the knoll into the unknown as if trying to escape from 
 the darkness, winding and glistening. The stream 
 where it gurgled over the stones seemed a good place 
 to play. He could not take it seriously as he did the 
 tree, whose magnificence appealed to his heart 
 
 6 
 
THE VAGABOND 
 
 For more than a year after Ann s departure he 
 knew no companion except his lessons and his father. 
 Then he made his first friend. Often he had watched 
 Hawkins s farm-hands working in the fields, envying 
 their activity. One of them, of six feet two or three, 
 had particularly interested him. The giant reminded 
 the boy of the pine-tree, even as Jim Hawkins re 
 minded him of a twisted shrub. On a June day, 
 when desire overleapt parental warning and his father 
 nodded over a book, he approached his hero. 
 
 "My name s William Williams. Fm the little boy 
 that lives in the old house yonder," he said, tentatively. 
 
 The giant stopped heaping the warm earth around 
 the green shoots and, throwing back his head, broke- 
 into a roaring laugh, which gained in volume till it 
 finally cracked. William, Jr., was in doubt whether 
 or not he would better run. He concluded to stay. 
 
 "My name s Tim Booker," the giant replied, final 
 ly, when his mirth had been reduced to the limits of 
 as expansive a grin as his broad mouth could master, 
 "and I m hoeing corn twenty-four hours a day for 
 Mister James Rawkins for sixteen dollars a month. 
 Figure that out for yourself, if you know arithmetic." 
 
 Thereupon, Tim took a corn-cob pipe out of his 
 pocket and began filling it, enjoying the attitude of 
 the boy, who regarded him sharply and dubiously and 
 finally said, with portentous conviction: 
 
 "Twenty-four s all the hours there are in a day. 
 When do you sleep, Tim?" 
 
 At that, Tim roared again. William, Jr., had 
 heard very little laughter ; he had never dreamed of 
 such a laugh as this. He liked the life and move 
 ment of it. He liked Tim for all time. 
 
THE 
 
 "Honest Injun," Tim rejoined, "I guess sixteen 
 hours is nearer right." He bent over his interlocutor, 
 mischief triumphant in his glance: "You ve founr 1 
 me out, bub. Ordinary things you can see for yourseli. 
 When you say em, it s wearing on the spirits and 
 makes plain vittles taste no better than they are. 
 What s the use of talking unless you talk big? That s 
 my motto. Why, sometimes when the sods are tough 
 and the stones thick I just make it up that I m one 
 of them mediaeval knights that I ve read about, a-rid- 
 ing toward his castle on a horse that cuffs his ears 
 with every step, he s so prancing, and I say, Hoe, 
 warder, hoe! and it helps a lot." 
 
 "When you talk big your eyes twinkle, don t they, 
 Tim? And when you talk straight they re like the 
 water in the pool." 
 
 Thus they had a basis of understanding at once. 
 
 For his temerity, William, Jr., was whipped and 
 set upon his high-backed chair and made to conju 
 gate "to be" in Latin twice, and still he was uncon- 
 quered. Square chin meeting a lump of a chin, some 
 compromise was inevitable. It was agreed that he 
 might talk to the farm-hand when Tim was in either 
 of the fields nearest to the house. 
 
 How Tim helped! The prisoner followed him in 
 the corn-rows of spring and the swaths of harvest, 
 listening to his tales, rejoicing in his laugh, yet not 
 seeing too much of his friend to excite more than 
 his father s passing displeasure. The cunning of the 
 hunted was his from necessity. He knew that if he 
 ran away before he was large enough to run well, 
 he would be caught ; and he waited, in a cheery confi 
 dence that one day he would depart and keep on going 
 
 8 
 
THE VAGABOND 
 
 until he had seen all the world. Of nothing was he 
 so certain as that after his release he would never 
 want to stay long in any one place, hut would always 
 be on the go. In an old geography, soon after 
 Ann had gone, he had seen a wood-cut of a famous 
 peak. That was far more magnificent than the pine- 
 tree ; indeed, it carried pine-trees on its hack as easily 
 as a draught-horse a fly. Thenceforth, his greatest 
 ambition was to climb a mountain. He would lie on 
 his back on a summer s day and see a range of peaks 
 cutting the horizon in every direction. His other di 
 version was making pictures. The father tore up his 
 sketches and took his pencils away, and still he kept 
 on drawing. 
 
 The secret of his coming excursion into the world 
 he kept from Tim even from Tim for some time, 
 as he did for many years another secret whose origin 
 dated from one of his visits to a pool in the wood near 
 the pine. There he saw a little girl on hands and 
 knees on the fallen tree that had dammed the brook, 
 all intent upon the water beneath. He had seen girls 
 before, passing in buggies, but he had never spoken 
 to any of them. This one might have fallen from 
 the skies so far as any earthly connection was con 
 cerned. He approached cautiously, as to a covey, by 
 a detour which brought him to the bank a few yards 
 behind the phenomenon. A patch of sunlight glinted 
 upon the phenomenon s hair, which had the color and 
 sheen of a chestnut just out of the burr. Splash! A 
 pebble was dropped into the water and a small voice 
 from the Vision, which was intent on the ripples, 
 piped: 
 
 "Now it s not a mirror ! Now it s a lake !" 
 9 
 
THE VAGABOND 
 
 The boy realized, with his already quick grasp of 
 any situation which lay within his sight, that her 
 life was in his hands. If he were to startle her, being 
 such a very little girl, she would fall in. He must 
 remain quiet, in the hope that she would return safely 
 to the bank. 
 
 The water grew still. 
 
 "Now you ve come back," said the voice, which was 
 softer than any he knew, that of a Southern clime. 
 "How do you do, little girl? Why don t you say how 
 do you do, too? You re not very polite. I ll put you 
 in the dark closet. You sha n t have any ice-cream 
 for a week." 
 
 Ice-cream must be something very good, the boy 
 supposed ; he had never tasted it. 
 
 Another pebble dropped her last. Childhood had 
 pursued one fancy long enough. She clapped her 
 hands at the sight of a lily of the valley, whose soli 
 tary root clung to the naked earth of the bank, and 
 began, with what she thought was the greatest care, 
 to slip down from the log toward it and certain dis 
 aster. 
 
 With that keenness of eye for position of objects 
 of one who had gazed across the fields so much and 
 seen so little of men, the place for every step between 
 him and the log was mapped in his mind. He sprang 
 forward lightly and surefootedly and grasped the sash 
 of her pinafore. 
 
 "A boy s got you! Don t cry!" he said, with the 
 assurance of chivalry. 
 
 All unsuspicious of danger, she glanced back at him 
 with the matter-of-factness of playing house; for she 
 was used to the appearance of allies to aid her to her 
 heart s desires. 
 
 10 
 
THE VAGABOND 
 
 "Hold on tight!" she admonished. "I can just 
 weach it." 
 
 As he assisted her to the bank she was in nowise 
 conscious of the part that he had played. He was 
 as slow to mention it as he would have been twenty 
 years later. The joy of a deed itself was ever enough 
 for him. He felt a glow of triumph such as could 
 never spring from a lesson well learned. She scruti 
 nized him in the manner, however young, of class con 
 fronting class. In return, he scrutinized her as if 
 she were a new species of humanity. His gaze hung 
 on two features, which he was always to remember: 
 the tiny mole on her chin and her hair. She was the 
 first to speak. 
 
 "What is your name, little boy?" 
 
 As she asked the question, the mole on her chin 
 blinked oddly, charmingly, into a dimple. He had 
 never seen anything human like this smile. He be 
 held it in a kind of enchanted surprise to find that the 
 world contained any face so unlined by care. The 
 glow of it permeated him and made eight years con 
 fronting five seem a giant capable of mighty things. 
 
 "But I m not a little boy," he said, wrathfully. 
 
 "You re not a a man," she replied, judicially 
 shaking her head. "If you re not a liiile boy, you re 
 a boy. What s your name, boy?" 
 
 "William Williams." 
 
 "How can it be? Boys aren t called John Johns 
 and Tom Toms. What is your other name side 
 Williams?" 
 
 "William Williams s all I know," he replied. 
 
 "How funny!" she exclaimed, as she sat down at 
 the foot of the pine. "William Williams is like 
 
 11 
 
THE VAGABOND 
 
 church. I know two Williams and they re both 
 Billies for short. I ll call you Billy. Thank you, 
 Billy, for coming to play with me, and do sit down. 
 I was quite lonely," continued the Vision. "Do you 
 ever get lonely, Billy ?" 
 
 "Do I!" He drew a deep breath. "Whew! Do I! 
 Do you have lots of boys and girls to play with?" 
 
 "My, yes! There s a whole ring around the rosey 
 of us at the Post Jack and Harry and Mary and 
 Alice and Tommy lots of us; and lots of soldiers, 
 and the band plays, and once papa let me stay up 
 and I peeked in at a real ball." 
 
 "What is a post?" 
 
 "It s the place where the army lives; big barracks 
 for the men and houses for the officers; two big pil 
 lars in front and the sentry walking up and down 
 looking just as neat and smart as he can, so s not to 
 be scolded or put in the guard-house. The guard- 
 house s his dark closet." 
 
 "What is a real ball?" 
 
 "A ball! You don t know what a ball is, either? 
 Well, you are a little boy!" 
 
 "A big boy that doesn t know much, I guess," he 
 said, earnestly. "I live in the old house over there. 
 My father won t let me go anywhere and you 
 you re the first little girl I ve ever talked to." 
 
 The Vision shut her lips tight and shook her finger 
 severely at him. 
 
 "Billy Williams," she said, slowly, "it s naughty 
 to tell lies." 
 
 "I m not lying! It s true!" 
 
 "Cross your heart and hope to die ?" she pursued, 
 solemnly. 
 
 12 
 
THE VAGABOND 
 
 "What do you mean?" he asked. 
 
 "Billy Williams," she replied, with puckering brow, 
 "I guess the stork kept you in his pocket by mistake 
 till you was most growed up and just horned you 
 this morning." 
 
 Childhood, having explained a mystery in child 
 hood s way even as the miracles of peoples were 
 made proceeded to enlighten ignorance by taking 
 the boy s hands in hers and crossing them over his 
 breast. 
 
 "Cross my heart and hope to die I m telling the 
 truth," he repeated. "And I ve never talked to a 
 little boy, either." 
 
 After this test and having her theory of the ab 
 sent-mindedness of the stork in view, she was quite 
 prepared for anything. 
 
 He longed to do something to demonstrate that he 
 was not as insignificant as his ignorance made him 
 seem. A butterfly which lighted near-by became his 
 opportunity. 
 
 "I ll catch it for you!" he cried. 
 
 By the bank of the creek and in the fields he gave 
 chase, never heeding others that crossed his path, but 
 following the original one with singleness of purpose 
 until he had imprisoned it. With heads together they 
 knelt, slowly opening the cage he had made of his 
 cap until a struggling wing appeared. She touched 
 it; silver powder glistened on the robber thumb. 
 
 "Poor little butterfly ! Let it go !" she said ; for 
 only the sex that conserves and sits at home has an 
 inborn hatred of killing and destruction. 
 
 He obeyed with the faith of a disciple. She clapped 
 her hands delightedly. 
 
 13 
 
THE VAGABOND 
 
 catch it again!" he cried; and he who had been 
 so long hidden in the stork s pocket would have run 
 until he fell from exhaustion for the reward of her 
 smile. 
 
 "No, no, please," she said. "All the boys at the 
 Post have promised Billy Williams, cross your heart 
 and hope to die you ll never rob a bird s nest. It s 
 very naughty." 
 
 The disciple fervently took the oath. 
 
 "Thank you, Billy," she said, with a little cour 
 tesy. 
 
 Then it was that a man of eight-and-twenty ap 
 peared, a fishing-rod on his arm and his face trium 
 phant over the catch that had made him slightly for 
 getful of his daughter s presence. 
 
 "Company, eh ?" he said, cheerily. 
 
 Young William drew a little to one side. His 
 guiltiness did not prevent him from observing this 
 other father from head to toe. Tim Booker stood 
 as erect, he thought, but the stranger s figure seemed 
 to be knitted into his clothes. 
 
 "Yes," she said, speaking for her companion, 
 "this is Billy Williams, and he s just the funniest 
 little boy you ever did see, daddy." 
 
 "Well, Billy," daddy observed, stating a fact 
 rather than asking a question, "how is that for a 
 trout?" 
 
 He flung open his basket, while the sun played on 
 gold and silver scales and speckles, and then as quickly 
 he dropped the lid again and reached down and took 
 his daughter s hand in his. 
 
 "Good-by, Billy Williams," the Vision called back 
 over her shoulder. "Be sure you don t rob birds 
 
 14 
 
THE VAGABOND 
 
 nests, and hurry home to your dinner so you won t be 
 scolded." 
 
 He stood quite still for some time after she had 
 gone. She had been wonderful, very, very wonder 
 ful, indeed. And the man, too. He seemed to exhale 
 something of the outside world which the boy was 
 one day to explore, as he travelled and travelled to 
 make up for his imprisonment. 
 
 "I let her order me about just as she pleases," he 
 thought. "I d never let any boy do that never! 
 I d I d fight him first." 
 
 He had changed his ideas of his mountain some 
 what. Now he wanted it to be steeper than the one 
 in the wood-cut a mountain all warty with overhang 
 ing bowlders so that he could make a brave show 
 in climbing it as she watched him. Slowly he walked 
 back to the men in the fields, and to his friend he 
 said, most seriously: 
 
 "Tim, please call me Billy after this. That s the 
 nickname for William, isn t it?" 
 
 "When it ain t Bill; mostly it s Bill. Well, Billy 
 it is, bub. What put that into your head?" 
 
 But Billy was not going to impart a hint of his new 
 secret to any living soul; so he answered the question 
 by asking one about the old, familiar one, which of 
 late he had shared with his great friend. 
 
 "How much bigger ought I to be, Tim, before I can 
 run away and be sure not to be caught?" 
 
 Tim leaned back and let a guffaw break in healthy 
 resonance skyward. Then he regarded Billy with a 
 measuring and pronounced squint. 
 
 "Six inches," he concluded, decisively. "And you 
 don t want to start till the apples are ripe. If 
 
 15 
 
THE VAGABOND 
 
 you start when they re green, that ll ruin your 
 chances." 
 
 " Wouldn t five inches do f-i-v-e?" Five seemed 
 such a lot. 
 
 "No, sir. I ve set you the limit." 
 
 "Six it is, Tim. I d rather make it seven and be 
 sure not to be caught. I just want to keep right 
 on growing and never, never" something caught in 
 his throat and then by contagion in Tim s throat, too. 
 
 Before the day was done he had drawn a mark 
 even with the top of his head on the door-casing and 
 six inches above it another. When he told Tim of 
 this, Tim was sorry for his remark. 
 
 "I meant Injun inches. They re twice as long. Six 
 Injun inches is a foot." 
 
 But the boy caught Tim s eye in a twinkle. Tim 
 realized that it was too late to draw back and found 
 himself a bounden party to the enterprise. There 
 after, Billy had only to look at the marks on the door- 
 casing when he chafed under his burden to be in 
 spirited to meek and proper conduct. He began 
 systematically to read everything about mountains 
 offered by the book-littered room that served as a 
 library. Some traveller s tale about the wealth of the 
 Urals enlarged his ambition. He must find a mine 
 in his mountain. 
 
 She would wait for him under the trees at the 
 foot of the great ascent and he would bring her a lap- 
 ful of gold and precious stones just for the pleasure 
 of seeing her smile and watching the mole dipping 
 in and out of the dimple in her chin ; all this when he 
 did not even know her name and only that she lived 
 at an army post. Such imageries in an eerie boy, 
 
 16 
 
THE VAGABOND 
 
 bound to be happy though in a prison, would not be 
 worth our mention had not his determination and the 
 ardor of his loneliness and his adherence to first im 
 pressions made him steadfast. His friendship for Tim 
 was for all time and all moods. His fancy for the girl 
 was not a passing one. Hence this story* 
 
II 
 
 FOUR OF THE SIX INCHES 
 
 Billy found, as hermits have before him, that the 
 earth is never quiet. It can chatter as well as thunder; 
 also listen to a boy s heart-beats. In winter, the still 
 ness of some days spoke to him of the solemn grandeur 
 of his mountain; the wind through the trees on others, 
 of the precipices and jagged inclines and all obstacles 
 that gave its ascent fascination. In summer, the hum 
 ming of insects, the softer concert of buds bursting 
 and leaves unfolding, the gentler side of Nature, 
 spoke to him of that Vision by the pool. He never 
 disturbed the swallows nest which was lodged under 
 the eaves near his window; yet he ruthlessly caught 
 butterflies which, in fancy, he laid at her feet and 
 then sent fluttering away at her royal command. 
 
 May had come once more and he had gained four 
 of the six inches when he undertook a practice climb. 
 He slipped out of the window of his room upon the 
 roof of the porch and thence into one of the elm-trees. 
 From the top he hoped to see the village. With one 
 hand against the trunk to steady himself, he looked 
 up, selecting each crotch which was to be a step of his 
 ladder. 
 
 "My! This is nothing at all," he said, "nothing at 
 ill beside a mountain and precipices!" 
 
 As his gaze swept downward through an opening 
 1.8 
 
THE VAGABOND 
 
 in the foliage, he caught a glimpse of an immense 
 butterfly. Releasing his grasp of the limb, he clapped 
 his hands at the joy of getting such a beauty for the 
 girl, lost his balance and fell. (This is important as 
 the first of such tragedies.) He remembered no more 
 until the pain came and he opened his eyes. 
 
 "The leg s broken! It s broken! I thought so!" 
 said his father, as he felt of it. "I ll take you to the 
 doctor. Yes, I ll take you to the doctor. No woman 
 around, either." 
 
 The voice was high, complaining, angry. After all, 
 his method of rearing had not saved his son from 
 accidents which befall other boys. With Billy in his 
 arms, he started toward the gate, a walk of three 
 miles before him. There he stood irresolute for a 
 minute, then bore his burden back to the house and 
 to his own room, where he laid it on the bed as ab 
 stractedly as if it were his coat. The jolt forced a 
 groan from unwilling lips. 
 
 "Mrs. Rawkins hasn t been here this morning?" the 
 father asked. 
 
 The question was enough to have convinced the 
 neighbors who thought William Williams, Sr., queer 
 that he was something more ; a conviction that would 
 have been formed long before if he had meddled in 
 anybody s else affairs or some relative had wanted his 
 property. 
 
 "No, oh, no! It hurts how it hurts!" was the 
 reply. 
 
 "Of course it does. I told you it would. I ve been 
 warning you ever since you were born that it would. 
 Don t you suppose I know ? It runs that way. Water 
 doesn t run back up hill after it has run down. Don t 
 
 19 
 
THE VAGABOND 
 
 you suppose I know ? Mrs. Hawkins hasn t been here, 
 either. It s strange. The doctor he s a man! I ll 
 go for the doctor." 
 
 For the first time in many years the recluse broke 
 out of a walk. He ran half way to Hawkins s house 
 before he stopped. 
 
 "I could set it myself," he said. "It s all in my 
 books of medicine. But " 
 
 But to put all or anything that he had learned 
 into sustained, decisive action was beyond his capac 
 ity. He uttered an oath, which might have been 
 directed at either the doctor, the boy, or the accident, 
 and strode on. 
 
 > Meanwhile, Billy s spirit had risen above mere bod 
 ily suffering. He sat bolt upright, splintered bone 
 pricking flesh. If he could never walk again he might 
 not climb his mountain! He might not run away! 
 It was the hope of freedom that had made him joy 
 ous under tyranny. To hobble as he had seen lame 
 horses! To lie through a lifetime that should be one 
 long, rainy day, watching his father pace up and 
 down the room! Never to explore the world! Never 
 to know the elation of buffeting its hazards! Never 
 to see the army post with the sentry pacing up and 
 down between the two pillars in front of the entrance ! 
 Never to see the girl ! Never to draw pictures of the 
 strange places and faces he should see ! Flesh quiver 
 ing with shock, mind quivering with suspense, he 
 drew himself toward the edge of the bed to learn his 
 fate. Though it did hurt so much, perhaps he could 
 still walk. He touched the well leg to the floor; he 
 tried to steady the broken one; it flopped out of his 
 control with an overpowering knife-thrust of pain. 
 
 20 
 
THE VAGABOND 
 
 Again he was back on the bed; again that saturnine 
 face with the scattered beard, the hollow cheek-bones, 
 the big nose and the retreating chin, was over him. 
 As the lids were raised, the father seized the boy in 
 his arms, kissed him two or three times with mad, 
 rough press; then sprang into the adjoining room, 
 seated himself facing the bed, and stared at the flesh 
 of his flesh as if it were an invader. 
 
 "I forgot," he said, his passion congealing into 
 cynicism. "That was almost the same as kissing 
 her." 
 
 It was Tim Booker who had galloped to the village, 
 with his heart in his errand. His broad shoulders 
 squared, he led the way into the house with an air of 
 authority which was ever his own. 
 
 "Here s Doc Thomson! He s going to flx you up 
 all right! Why, the doc once set sixteen bones in a 
 boy and that boy was smart as a cricket in two weeks," 
 he said, as he laid his big hand on Billy s head; and 
 Billy tried to smile at the twinkle in Tim s eye. 
 
 The father glowered; then turned wheedlingly to 
 the doctor. 
 
 "There won t be room for more than two at the 
 operation, will there?" he asked. 
 
 Tim slowly turned his eyes and flashed them on the 
 objector. 
 
 "I m going to stick right here, Mr. Williams," he 
 said. 
 
 "Yes, it s better," the doctor added, when he saw 
 how Billy s face lighted at Tim s words. 
 
 The doctor s kindliness was deeper than profession 
 al smirks. Hard riding for small fees had made his 
 life, as the lines of his smooth-shaven face showed, 
 
 21 
 
THE .VAGABOND 
 
 an expression of his interest in the well-being of his 
 little world. 
 
 "Yes, yes, it hurts a bit," he said, as he made the 
 examination. "When we put it back it ll hurt a good 
 deal more; so we ll see how much of a soldier you 
 are. Mr. Booker, now if you ll just take hold of it 
 there and keep the ankle steady." 
 
 "Let father do it!" Billy pleaded. "I want Tim 
 here." He thrust his hand into the big palm of his 
 friend. "If you ll let me have Tim I won t whimper." 
 
 "Yes, yes, certainly," said the doctor, softly. 
 "Just hold the ankle steady now, Mr. Williams." 
 
 The broken ends gritted, the bruised flesh quivered, 
 and the boy ground his teeth and drove his nails into 
 Tim s hands. As the doctor put the splints on and 
 began his directions for the care of the patient, Billy 
 interrupted him with a question that was a sobbing 
 cry. 
 
 "Tell me true, true! Cross your heart and hope to 
 die" that same oath that the Vision had adminis 
 tered to him "cross your heart and hope to die, tell 
 me honest will I ever be well enough to walk, well 
 enough to climb a mountain?" 
 
 He grasped Tim s hands tightly with both of his 
 to help him bear the answer. 
 
 "Yes, you can climb anything Mr. Booker can." 
 (The doctor always put in the Mister. Desiring re 
 spect, he showed it to others.) 
 
 "I can! I can! Tim, I can!" 
 
 His face was aflame. The mountain was his to 
 climb; the world was his to explore. He could run 
 away ! He should see the girl ! 
 
 "And will I stop growing? Only two inches 
 
THE VAGABOND 
 
 more just two before I ll be big enough to run 
 away!" In his excitement he had told his secret, and 
 to his disadvantage, as his father s face showed. 
 
 "No. You ought to be pretty near as big as Mr. 
 Booker," the doctor said. 
 
 Billy fainted for joy, and both the doctor and Tim 
 were wiping their eyes when he revived. After they 
 had gone, William, Sr., bent over his son, saying, al 
 most unctuously: 
 
 a So you are going to run away, are you?" 
 
 There was no reply. 
 
 "I ll take care of that," William, Sr., added. 
 
 William, Jr., looked up at his father and, pain- 
 ridden as he was, asked, weakly: 
 
 "If I don t run away, what are you going to do 
 with me when I get to be a man?" 
 
 "Teach you! Teach you and see you don t draw 
 fool pictures. You can read enough of the wickedness 
 of the world. Learn, learn; that is the only thing. 
 You can t learn much, even if you live to be a hun 
 dred. I ll see you dead before I ll see you run away." 
 
 Still William, Jr., made no reply. He only looked 
 up steadily into his father s eyes and smiled. He had 
 ever the trick of meeting the crises of his life in this 
 way by silence and a saving humor. That smile was 
 indescribable, suggesting a wisdom as mature as its 
 maker s experience of life was immature. It was tan 
 talizing in its confidence and determination. 
 
 His optimism in face of the threat made convales 
 cence speedy. When, in the late summer, tragedy pre 
 cipitated him into new surroundings, one leg was as 
 good as the other. 
 
Ill 
 
 AND FOUR PROVE ENOUGH 
 
 Oh, you foolish adults with work-stiffened imagina 
 tions ! Between trips to the house of death, Mrs. Haw 
 kins warned the "poor dear" not to cry, for his pa had 
 only gone to sleep. In truth, Billy had not shed a 
 tear, a fever of wonder, awe, and agony having dried 
 the ducts. With his knees on the rag-carpet cushion 
 of a cane chair, he watched the coroner s jury congre 
 gate, one by one, proceed in a body to their duties, 
 and one by one depart. 
 
 Then came the undertaker from Newland Centre 
 and the inquiring neighbors, with "do tells." Half 
 hidden behind the curtains he heard their greetings 
 and speculations. They "wondered" what would be 
 come of the boy; they had "hearn tell" that Williams 
 had "perty much" run through everything he had, and 
 what he hadn t a witticism this, in a knowing 
 whisper Jim Hawkins had got ; they "guessed" that 
 the outlook for the "little shaver" was "perty bad" 
 and he d have to be "bound out" to somebody for 
 his "keep." That is, "onless" Judge John Williams, 
 of the neighboring county, should take a hand. But 
 the Judge had never had any association with his 
 brother. A "curyus" man, said a Whig. There poli 
 tics was interjected. 
 
 "Curyus!" exclaimed a Democrat, in sarcasm. 
 "D ye ever hear him speak ? He wiped out twenty- 
 
 24 
 
THE VAGABOND 
 
 six hundred Whig majority in Belmore, that s what 
 he did. He s the youngest jedge Belmore ever had. 
 Curyus ! He s jest curyus nough to be Governor of 
 this State some day." 
 
 Even while they discussed this rising statesman, a 
 mud-bespattered buggy from the Newland Centre 
 livery-stable drove up. 
 
 "That s a good mare youVe got, Ed," said the pas 
 senger, as he alighted, as if he had known the driver 
 all his life instead of two hours. 
 
 "How re ye, Jedge ?" said his defender, his waist 
 receding and his chest swelling. "Heerd ye talk once 
 over to Plaronville." 
 
 "Well; and how s that boy of yours the little fel 
 low that was with you when the mayor introduced 
 you?" For the Judge had the memory and the art 
 which make votes. 
 
 Actually not more than thirty-two or three, his 
 manner and dress, even in those stiff days, made him 
 seem forty, with the experience of fifty. Of average 
 height, he was already a little inclined to stoutness. 
 The style of his stock and collar, as well as his coat 
 and high hat, were well out of date. One might have 
 said, at first glance, that he had grown up in the com 
 pany of old people who had taught him to make his 
 life a protest against changing fashions. If you 
 looked at him more closely when he spoke, you saw 
 that his garb was only the eccentricity or the lapse of 
 a broad character. "The Jedge don t care nothin 
 bout clothin his outside," said Belmore County De 
 mocracy. "He s too busy clothin his insides with 
 larnin ." A mobile face and deep-set eyes set off a 
 mouth which had the droop of the natural orator s. 
 
 25 
 
THE VAGABOND 
 
 It was a bold Whig who ventured the remark that 
 the Judge was something of a stranger in these 
 "parts." The bold Whig meant to be sarcastic, 
 though it did not occur to the Judge that he did. 
 
 "Yes, it s twenty years since I was here. The old 
 place has changed a little," he added, sadly, as he 
 looked up at the house on the hill. 
 
 How he had come to leave it was a neighborhood 
 tale. Petty bullying had driven him to fight his 
 elder brother William and he had thrashed William. 
 His father had thrashed him in turn and he had run 
 away, without being followed or sought. 
 
 Presently he asked for his nephew and was led 
 into the sitting-room where Billy from his perch on 
 the rag-carpet cushion had seen and overheard every 
 thing. 
 
 "Pm your uncle, my boy," he said, somewhat 
 awkwardly. 
 
 Billy was suspicious of him. He looked too solid, 
 too reposeful, for a runaway s taste. 
 
 "How do you do?" he said, slowly and distantly. 
 
 The uncle studied his features steadily for a mo 
 ment, as if weighing the good family traits against 
 the bad, and unconsciously his manner was that of the 
 bench. Then he took Billy s chin in his hand and 
 coddled it as one does a precious token, while Billy 
 continued to stare at him and resented the familiar 
 ity. Unused to boys and having the orator s heart 
 and the orator s habit, he made a speech about the in 
 evitable which sounded well enough to adult ears but 
 made his youthful hearer fear him as a new enemy. 
 Later, when Billy saw the Judge and Jim Eawkins 
 leaving the yard together, he was drawn to a plan 
 
 26 
 
THE VAGABOND 
 
 which put action before inches. The decision sud 
 denly and irrevocably made, he looked around stealth 
 ily, as if he feared that someone might have overheard 
 his very thoughts. 
 
 He shared Tim s bed in a musty chamber upstairs. 
 On the previous night, exhaustion and a sustaining 
 presence had sent him to sleep quickly. Not so this 
 time, though his arm was around the neck of his 
 friend and comforter as before. When steady 
 breathing signified that Tim was in dreamland, the 
 shamming eyelids were raised. Curiosity, the fas 
 cination of the terrible event, an inexplicable desire 
 to see his father again, drew him toward his home. 
 He tiptoed to the window and listened: Silence 
 within, the crickets singing without. 
 
 It was only a minute s work for bare feet and 
 nimble toes and hands to drop to the ground and reach 
 the road. At that point of vantage he took a long 
 breath of boyish exultation, which was stopped short 
 when he saw that a light was burning in the big house 
 on the hill. Had his father come to life again ? With 
 his imagination surging, bravely urging his legs for 
 ward, on he went, crouching in the deep shadows that 
 the rail fence cast under a waning moon s rays. He 
 was unconscious of the gashes cut in bare soles by 
 sharp stones and the thorns of stems of the wild rasp 
 berry bushes that clung to the rails for support. In 
 which room was the light? Once at the gate, he had 
 no doubt that it was in the parlor, which had always 
 been closed. Suppose his father were alive and lur 
 ing him on with a lamp to kill him! 
 
 His stock of observation, large from lack of human 
 association, assured him that it was easier to see into 
 
 27 
 
THE VAGABOND 
 
 the room than out of it. How like his father, this 
 folly of not putting the lamp outside where all the 
 advantage would be with the tenant! He crept in the 
 shadows and then on all fours under the window, 
 where he held his breath and listened. Still no sound 
 save the crickets. He flattened his hands against the 
 clapboards, resting on tiptoes, and inch by inch raised 
 his head until he could see within. 
 
 In the centre of the room was a long black box. 
 On its tapering end stood a lamp which threw its glare 
 fairly into the faces of the watchers. The work had 
 been hard in the field that day, and Nature had as 
 serted itself over the presence of death. One was an 
 elderly man, who had slipped down in his chair; the 
 other was a young man, whose head wabbled with his 
 breaths which caught in his windpipe. As if in keep 
 ing with the scene, Billy found the outer door ajar. 
 He listened; stepped inside and listened again. He 
 heard nothing except the pounding of his own heart. 
 It seemed to him to be rocking the whole house. Still 
 it kept on, and still no one was stirred by the sound 
 of it. 
 
 He crept to the parlor and peeked through the crack 
 between the jamb and the open door, to find the sleep 
 ers as unconscious as the dead. The lamp on the foot 
 of the coffin threw uncanny shadows over the haircloth 
 furniture, the melodeon against the wall, and the cob 
 web-laden portraits of the builder of the house and 
 the builder s wife. What a price in sweat those lean 
 features had paid for the most expensively furnished 
 "best room" for miles around, with what a result! 
 They had scarcely set foot into luxury which was for 
 the son s sake, which the son had sealed up to decay. 
 
 28 
 
THE VAGABOND 
 
 One side of the lamp-chimney was smoked, the other 
 gray with grease and dirt. At its base was an accumu 
 lation of dead flies. 
 
 At first, whenever the young man s head nodded, 
 Billy dodged. At length he became so confident that 
 he imagined himself making passes before the faces of 
 the sleepers without awakening them. He stepped to 
 the side of the coffin. Ascertaining by gentle pressure 
 that the lid would slide, he slowly pushed it back till 
 he saw the face of his father. William Williams, Sr., 
 had done nothing in life with such precision as the 
 firing of the shot that ended it. A tiny hole in either 
 temple, exactly in line, was plugged with cotton. The 
 lamplight made two deep, oblong shadows of the eye- 
 pits; the chin seemed to have fallen farther away 
 from the big nose; the scraggly beard had been indif 
 ferently trimmed. 
 
 Billy forgot to observe the watchers. His eyes dwelt 
 on the visage before them until they were blinded by 
 the scene of the day before; until in imagination he 
 dodged again to escape his father s first bullet and 
 saw him fall with the second report He heard or 
 thought he heard a ghostly creaking in another part 
 of the house. "Not waiting to close the lid, he now fled 
 in panic from the room as if a phantom were pur 
 suing him. When he reached the road he stopped 
 abruptly. Retreat was obnoxious to his whole 
 nature. The light still gleamed from the window 
 and the crickets still chirped. An impulse sent him 
 dodging back in the shadows to the window. The 
 coffin was still open ; the watchers were still sleeping. 
 
 I ll have a good look at a thing before I get scared 
 about it again/ 7 he whispered. 
 
 29 
 
THE VAGABOND 
 
 His sight of that mockery, his home, was satisfied 
 forever. He sped on to the Rawkins house, climbed 
 in at the window, and discreetly awakened his friend 
 by tugging at his hair. Tim sat bolt upright in bed 
 and rubbed his eyes, while he listened in amazement. 
 
 "I can t help the inches, Tim," Billy gasped at last. 
 "I d die if I went to the funeral. I can t wait any 
 longer. I m going to-night." 
 
 Tim drew him close to his breast and shook him 
 with a big bear s affection for its cub. This boy s con 
 ceits had kept this man of fancies in Hawkins s em 
 ploy. 
 
 "Go ahead. That inch and a half won t count if 
 you mind your p s and q s," he whispered. 
 
 "Tim!" Billy burrowed at Tim joyfully with a 
 clinched fist. 
 
 Tim had run away from home himself, away from 
 a farmer of those close-living, hard-praying New Eng 
 land days may Heaven bless their virtues and also 
 damn their faults ! to whom he had been bound out 
 for his "keep." So he had advice to give. 
 
 "Look every man in the eye and nobody will try 
 to put a check-rein on you. But don t you think that 
 every man s eyes will twinkle when he lies. I ve got 
 a patent right on that myself. And the deeper you re 
 in trouble, the sharper you look to your smile. With 
 your head up and that smile in working order, you ll 
 do, you ll do! St t, keep still!" 
 
 Tim took a key out of his trousers which hung on 
 the bedpost. He tiptoed to a corner, fumbled awhile, 
 opened a box, and returned to put something that 
 gleamed yellow in the moonlight and twenty cents in 
 change all he had into the boy s hand. 
 
 30 
 
THE VAGABOND 
 
 "It s a twenty-dollar gold piece. It ll buy you 
 things to eat till you put forty or fifty miles behind 
 you. I d go with you, only they d suspect I d put 
 you up to the game." He drew Billy closer to him. 
 It seemed as if Billy was bone of his bone and blood 
 of his blood. a My boy, wherever you are, whatever 
 your luck, you ve got a friend in Tim Booker you can 
 count on. When you get away and things are quieted 
 down, write me." 
 
 "Yes, Tim; why, of course. You re the only friend 
 I ve got and I love you." 
 
 "When you make up your mind to run, run. If 
 you feel like snivelling swallow hard and then try to 
 whistle. Most boys by the time they ve gone five 
 miles can t think of anything but their sore feet and 
 troubles; so they go sneakin back. If you don t, when 
 I get that letter I ll run away and catch up with you 
 and we ll try our luck together." 
 
 "Oh, Tim, will you?" 
 
 "I ve given my word." 
 
 "Will you go climb mountains with me? And will 
 we be real true partners forever, Tim cause I love 
 you." 
 
 "Yes." 
 
 He pressed Billy and kissed him. "Good-night," 
 he added, and rolled over with his back to the boy. 
 
 "Good-night, Tim." 
 
 "Nig-h-ht," drawled a voice smothered in a 
 pillow. 
 
 "I ll write. I ll wait for you, Tim." 
 
 "No answer. 
 
 "I m going, Tim." 
 
 "I m asleep," drawled the truthful fabricator. "Af- 
 31 
 
THE VAGABOND 
 
 ter pitching hay all day a man can t be expected to 
 know what s going on at one o clock in the morning." 
 With his shoes and stockings in hand and a final 
 good-by, which Tim pretended not to hear, Billy 
 went out into the world. 
 
IV 
 
 IF YOU HOLD YOUR HEAD HIGH 
 
 Now lie had passed from under the black cloud into 
 the blue; now the sunlight of his nature might play 
 upon all the adventures that his heart might favor and 
 his mind conceive. 
 
 Ordinary boyish discretion overshadowed by his 
 sense of relief, he had taken to the road in direct line 
 of flight. It was gray dawn when he entered the 
 village. He heard blinds flung open with creak and 
 slam, but saw no one in the street, and pursued his 
 way with a glance of curiosity at the one-story build 
 ing with "Post-Office and General Store" in faded let 
 ters over the door, which had been the most familiar 
 and nearest thing of the outer world in the every-day 
 talk of Tim and the Hawkins family. Fifteen of the 
 twenty cents in change went promptly for crackers 
 and cheese at Newland Centre, twelve miles from 
 home and twenty miles from Plaronville, the metropo 
 lis of the county of Belmore, which was the terminus 
 of a railroad and a great place, generally speaking, in 
 A.D. 1849. 
 
 He spent that night on a stack of new-mown hay 
 in the sweet sleep of vagabondage, awakening at sun 
 up to find his feet too sore and swollen for his shoes. 
 He smiled at Tim s warning, even while he looked at 
 the gashes of the raspberry thorns. Wounds in a good 
 cause may be sweet; a welted scar a petted souvenir. 
 
 33 
 
THE VAGABOND 
 
 His buoyant nature was not of the kind that turns 
 back; rather of the kind that spits itself on the bayo 
 net. He went picking his way over the stubble to the 
 nearest pasture, whistling as one who is hastening 
 through a stint to a long holiday. 
 
 Thus he descended upon a near-by town just as the 
 hotel-keeper was opening his doors. The odor of fry 
 ing bacon and eggs came from the kitchen. It was 
 easy to conclude that a breakfast offered a most digni 
 fied excuse for changing his twenty-dollar gold piece. 
 As he approached, the landlord fastened a notice on a 
 space on the clapboards peppered with rusty tack- 
 holes beside those of a town meeting, a sheriff s sale, 
 and a runaway slave, and passed in. 
 
 Boyish curiosity must read: 
 
 "Fifty Dollars Reward," ran the letters before 
 Billy s amazed eyes. "Ran away from the Williams 
 Homestead, Rockville, Newland Co., night of August 
 llth, William Williams. Supposed to have gone in 
 the direction of Plaronville. A boy ten years old, 
 large for his age, carries his head high, sandy-haired, 
 blue-eyed, much freckled, short nose and strong chin. 
 Wore a gingham shirt buttoned into linsey-woolsey 
 pants about the height of his ankles. Fifty dollars 
 will be paid for his return or detention. Address 
 Judge John Williams, Belmore, or James Rawkins, 
 Newland Centre. P. S. William need have no fears. 
 He will have a good home," 
 
 So the Judge and Jim had joined hands against 
 him ! "A good home !" He had about as much use for 
 that, Billy thought, with mountains to climb and the 
 world to explore, as a mermaid for shoes. How could 
 it be a good home with the pompous, oratorical man 
 
 34: 
 
THE VAGABOND 
 
 in the stock or Jim Rawkins in sight? It would take 
 a livelier bait than that to catch him. 
 
 When he had read the notice about himself through 
 twice, he read the others about Bingo, late of Yirginia, 
 the fallen cattle trader, and the town meeting con 
 fusedly, while, the edge of his hunger flattened by 
 anxiety, he determined upon his course of flight. In 
 the manner of John Smith s son going to the post-of 
 fice after the weekly paper, he turned and walked 
 away. He understood that if anybody was watching 
 him he would only excite suspicion by looking back ; 
 for he had seen his own freckled face in the mirror 
 often enough to know how well he answered to the 
 description. 
 
 He promptly struck into the fields, keeping the 
 main road to Plaronville in sight. After some minutes 
 he noticed a man in a buggy driving rapidly. Sud 
 denly this fellow stopped ; then sent his horse forward 
 at a trot, disappearing over a knoll. Billy grasped his 
 pursuer s plan. . His first impulse was to run; his sec 
 ond, quickly following or else there had been none, 
 involved his first stroke of cunning. He walked on 
 as if he were still John Smith s son going after the 
 weekly paper. The pursuer, having left his vehicle 
 and doubled on his course, met him just at the top of 
 the knoll. 
 
 "Guess you re perty hungry by this time, Billy 
 "Williams," he said, a little pompously. "I ve cpme 
 to take you home." 
 
 With that fifty dollars as good as in his pocket, the 
 town loafer (who had "borrered a hoss jest to run 
 down the road a piece") grinned at the weaknesses of 
 human nature. 
 
 85 
 
THE VAGABOND 
 
 "Perty!" The boy with his inborn hatred of pom 
 posity had a sense of mimicking the dialect, try hard 
 as he would to play the lambkin s part. "Have I got 
 to walk?" He held up a bare sole. "My feet s perty 
 sore." 
 
 "No, sir! No boy s got to walk that goes with Abe 
 Parkins. We ll have a nice breakfus at the hotel to 
 gether." 
 
 (What a story of how Abe "managed it" as he 
 "sets 7 em up" after Billy is packed off for Newland 
 Centre, value received!) 
 
 "Thank you. I m hungry as a bear," said that 
 wicked runaway. 
 
 "Yeh-op ! I know boys ; all boys has got stummicks, 
 ain t they? And they finds it out about breakfus - 
 time, don t they ? Ho, ho, ho !" observed the sage. 
 
 Abe s borrowed steed was tied to a fence. Not yet 
 recovered from his haste to reach the crest of the hill, 
 he was only too glad to avail himself of the boy s 
 offer to run ahead and unhitch. Billy untied the 
 strap leisurely. The instant it was loose he turned 
 into a human cat that sprang into the buggy and 
 slapped the horse s flanks. When he was far down 
 the road he could not resist the joy of turning 
 in his seat and swinging his battered straw hat in 
 farewell to the pudgy, demonstrative figure in the 
 distance. 
 
 Simple cunning is stronger in the boy than in the 
 man, who lacks confidence to make it successful. Long 
 latent in Billy, it now burned brightly. Every mile 
 was one nearer Plaronville. He halted before the 
 horse was worsted, because he saw his second line of 
 defence. Certain that no one was in sight, he ran 
 
 36 
 
THE VAGABOND 
 
 twenty yards into a field and dropped his shoes and 
 stockings. It was in August, you see. Ensconced in 
 a dry culvert which carried the waters of a brook in 
 spring, Billy overheard the arrival of Abe Parkins, 
 come by courtesy of a farmer s wagon ; also Abe s ex 
 pression of joy and his deductions therefrom when his 
 gaze lighted on the shoes and stockings; and, finally^ 
 he peeked out to see Abe fortify himself with some 
 thing from a bottle and start across the fields on the 
 trail. 
 
 The sport of the thing had chilled the memory of 
 the smell of eggs at the hotel. However, it did not 
 take the place of dinner and supper. As the hours 
 wore on, his throat seemed as dry as the culvert; his 
 stomach much larger. Inactivity and hunger made his 
 imagination race. He divined all kinds of obstacles 
 to his future progress and overcame them after his 
 own fashion. Ere he crept out at night he had become 
 an accomplished strategist. His plan of campaign was 
 unchanged: To satisfy his hunger, reach the city, then 
 the army post, then the mountains. 
 
 He had travelled farther than he thought in Abe 
 Parkins s "borrered" buggy. His scheme for milk 
 ing cows in the pastures for his dinner passed into thin 
 air when, from the first hill that he ascended, he saw 
 the twinkling lights of the city set in a basin of dark 
 ness. "With a twenty-dollar gold piece in his pocket, 
 why shouldn t he dine in town? "Who cared for one 
 small boy in such a big place? He would order ham 
 and eggs at that restaurant with the thousand candles 
 that played a great part in Tim s fantastic description 
 of urban life. By the light of the street-lamps he 
 could see the houses set in so many yards in the 
 
 37 
 
THE VAGABOND 
 
 suburbs. They seemed wofully cramped to him. 
 Why should anyone want to live in a box when there 
 were mountains to be climbed? Why should one walk 
 back and forth on a single narrow street when his legs 
 would carry him across a continent ? He stopped in the 
 shadow at a corner, wondering whether it was wise to 
 ask the way of two men whom he recognized as police 
 men. He could almost have touched the coat-tail of 
 one. 
 
 "Fifty dollars ain t to be had every day/ this one 
 was saying. "I ll nab every freckle-faced boy I see 
 on spec." 
 
 Before the other had drawled his rejoinder Billy 
 was gone. He flew down the first alley until he came 
 to a dry-goods box lying against the back of a store. A 
 glance showed that no one was following. There he 
 waited until he saw the lights of the residences dis 
 appear one by one and no longer heard footsteps on 
 the wooden sidewalk. 
 
 Excitement cannot long take the place of food for 
 any youngster. He was hungry and faint as he made 
 his way abroad. A few people still loitered in the 
 main street. With the spring of a leap for liberty in 
 his limbs, he walked on, once more John Smith s son 
 going after the weekly paper. Directly, his eye 
 brightened and his nostrils sniffed coffee. The one 
 restaurateur who could remain up until the pool 
 rooms closed was still out with his wagon. Oh, the 
 smell of that coffee! But it was not wise, the strate 
 gist reasoned, to tarry long enough in such a public 
 place to drink anything. Some pieces of bread with 
 meat between them marked "5 cents" he had never 
 seen the like before struck him as an ideal supper 
 
 38 
 
THE VAGABOND 
 
 for a boy in a hurry. He picked up four in a matter- 
 of-fact way and offered his twenty-dollar gold piece 
 in payment. The man scanned him closely. 
 
 "What s a boy your size doin with all that gold?" 
 he asked. (Yes, gingham shirt, head held high, and 
 freckled face.) 
 
 "That s my business. If you re too poor to change 
 it I ll take one." 
 
 He laid the long-squeezed five-cent piece on a sand 
 wich and walked on, slipping into the first dark cor 
 ner, the calls of his stomach supreme, to eat his pur 
 chase in peace. As he emerged, a hand was laid on 
 his shoulder. His face was fairly in the light of a 
 street-lamp as he looked up to his captor, who grinned 
 with satisfaction. 
 
 "Billy Williams, you ve come a good piece from 
 JSTewland Centre," he said. "I m going to take you 
 home." 
 
 "Are you quite sure?" thought Billy; while he said, 
 "All right," cheerfully and in great docility let the 
 policeman take his hand to lead him across the rail 
 road track and river to the police-station. He only 
 wished that his captor had a horse and buggy. But 
 strategists must deal with situations as they arise. He 
 soon recovered his wits and became gay, most demon 
 stratively so. As they passed onto the bridge he 
 cried : 
 
 "Hooray! And I ll ride in the train and sleep in my 
 own bed! Hooray!" 
 
 He threw his hat in the air. It fell some feet in 
 front of the pair. 
 
 "Well, you re a lively one!" thought the policeman, 
 as he watched him run ahead. 
 
 39 
 
THE VAGABOND 
 
 Billy picked up the hat and something else which 
 he had in mind. Lightning broke out of a clear sky 
 for the captor. The impact of a hurled stone against 
 the pit of his stomach made him blind and breathless. 
 Billy ran past him to the railroad yard and darkness, 
 trusting now entirely to flight. A freight train was 
 just creaking out of the yard. It was going in his 
 direction that of the army post. The coupling of the 
 rear car seemed to thrust itself out for his purpose. 
 He scrambled onto it, straddled it, and braced himself 
 with his hands between his legs. 
 
 Only boys and men who think that girls are worth 
 winning and mountains worth climbing are equal to 
 such efforts. Thus he rode for twenty long miles, un 
 til at break of day the train slowed up to cut out a car 
 at a station. So stiff that he could scarcely crawl at 
 first, he limped across the fields to a gully, where he 
 lay down and fell asleep. 
 
 It was past noon when he awoke, with his legs sore 
 and stiff and raw in places and shooting pains from 
 head to foot. As one fitful outburst of flame only 
 makes a room more cheerless on a winter s night, so 
 that one sandwich had left only a greater vacancy in 
 his stomach. By this time, he thought, he must have 
 passed out of touch with the notices of runaway boys. 
 He would go to the station and try to change that gold 
 piece. Then it occurred to him that he ought to look 
 around, for he had come so far that there might be 
 mountains in sight. Instead, he saw something that 
 gave him equal delight. There, not five hundred 
 yards away, were the long, two-storied building for 
 the men, the row of officers houses, the parade ground 
 and the stone pillars at the entrance, with a man in 
 
 40 
 
THE VAGABOND 
 
 uniform with rifle thrown over his shoulder walking 
 up and down. Everything else in abeyance, he limped 
 forward to inquire for the girl. He was going straight 
 to the pacing sentry when some papers on a board 
 fastened to one of the posts made him approach that 
 instead. 
 
 It was printed this time ! 
 
 Out of the corner of his eye he saw that the soldier 
 had not seen him. He started again to play the part 
 of John Smith s son going for the weekly paper. But 
 retreat was retreat from the girl. He must see her. 
 There must be other freckle-faced boys in the world. 
 ("Have a good look at a thing before you get scared 
 about it," he repeated to himself.) A confident man 
 ner might further the conviction that he was generic 
 rather than specific. With his head thrown back and 
 both hands in his pockets, appearing so much the oppo 
 site to crestfallen as logically to excite suspicion, he 
 stepped up to the sentry as that automaton wheeled on 
 his beat. 
 
 "Hello!" he said. 
 
 "Well, hello yourself, sonny. What s doing in your 
 county?" said the sentry. 
 
 He did not associate the freckled face with the no 
 tice because he had not looked at the front side of the 
 stone pillar since he began his "go" ten minutes before. 
 
 "Is is there a little girl here" how he wished that 
 he knew her name ! "a little girl with a mole on her 
 chin?" 
 
 The sentry was not a man of great comprehension 
 or even with a sense of humor, else he would have 
 found at least a laugh in the situation. 
 
 "Well, sonny, you re way behind the times. She 
 41 
 
THE VAGABOND 
 
 went out almost to the Rocky Mountains a year ago ;" 
 and with that he went on pacing. 
 
 Billy tried to whistle, partially succeeding, as Tim 
 had bidden him to do when in distress. His lip was 
 quivering; the freckles were on an ashen background; 
 but the head was still poised high and he smiled to 
 give countenance to that whistle. The Eocky Moun 
 tains were two thousand t-w-o t-h-o-u-s-a-n-d miles 
 away. He had meant to see them some day, of course. 
 In the meantime, he had intended to practise on 
 smaller mountains and grow. But the Rockies it 
 should be. His legs could carry him to their mighty 
 ascents, he was sure, if he held his head high and did 
 not get scared at things before he had a good look 
 at them. Besides, the notices could not follow him 
 all that distance, and she would be near-by when he 
 found his mine. His courage received fresh impetus; 
 the ache went out of his limbs. 
 
 As he turned to pursue his way, he saw another 
 man in uniform ; an officer as erect as the sentry despite 
 his age, smooth-shaven except for the little tufts of 
 iron-gray hair in front of his ears (in the fashion set 
 by General Scott). He looked at Billy sharply from 
 out of the mass of dried, squinting wrinkles which a 
 plainsman s life begets. Billy had never seen such 
 eyes before as these steely gray ones. Their glance 
 seemed to pass through him in merciless search of his 
 every secret. 
 
 "Well, well!" he said. "Your face is freckled 
 enough; gingham shirt and head up, too. Are you the 
 boy mentioned in this notice? Are you? * 
 
 "Yes, sir," was all Billy could say, as he tried to 
 smile and whistle. 
 
 42 
 
ANT> SMILE AT OGEES 
 
 And where was the girl? She is to play as impor 
 tant a part in our story as the boy. For the good and 
 sufficient reason that whatever concerns her concerns 
 him, we make a digression in this chapter measurable 
 by the difference in caste and the expanse of country 
 that separated the pair. She had become the Miss 
 General of another army post, enclosed in a high stock 
 ade that rose above the dead level of the prairie in the 
 armed loneliness of a man-of-war at sea. Her father 
 had gone to fight Indians (which was done in very 
 truth in those days); he had gone to meet a gallant 
 death which, whatever honor it brought to him, left 
 an orphan whose future was made the subject of a 
 council, the Colonel s wife acting as chairwoman. 
 The disposition of each member of the majority was 
 to adopt her. The minority, consisting of the chair 
 woman alone, was determined, forceful, and far-see 
 ing. 
 
 "We poor army folks haven t much to offer," said 
 she. "Think what he can do for her!" 
 
 "Suppose he should refuse!" put in a doubtful one, 
 with the same accent on the threatening pronoun. 
 
 "He can t!" returned the Colonel s wife. "We 
 sha n t give him a chance. We ll simply send her on. 
 
 43 
 
THE VAGABOND 
 
 When lie sees her and he can t help himself, he ll give 
 her her deserts for family pride s sake." 
 
 The opinion of the ranking lady prevailed. Soon 
 after the Vagabond started on his journey westward, 
 little Miss General started in the other direction in 
 charge of an officer s wife who was returning East. 
 
 "You must smile when you meet your grand 
 father," were the ranking lady s last words, and the 
 ranking lady was mighty and must be obeyed. 
 
 Between her periods of sobbing with her head in 
 her companion s lap, she promised herself to be very 
 brave, though there was no daddy any more to en 
 throne her with his epaulets as a seat, while that fate 
 ful letter to Mortimer Lanley, Esquire, travelled only 
 two days ahead of her. Besides, she was old enough 
 to understand the situation in its essentials, which 
 alone interest us. Her father and her grandfather had 
 quarrelled over the son s marriage to "that Yankee 
 girl" who had died with the birth of her child. 
 
 When the letter was brought to her nearest of kin, 
 he was in his study. An hour afterward, his body- 
 servant, Marcus Aurelius, re-entering, found him sunk 
 in his chair, the emptied sherry decanter overturned 
 at his side and the sheet that bore the news still in his 
 hand, which hung limp at his side. Marcus Aurelius 
 whistled but not until he had withdrawn. 
 
 When, finally, the master appeared, he said: "Set 
 your old mistress s rooms to rights;" called for his 
 horse and rode across the fields. Thus far ai\d no 
 further did he commit himself. Remorse for his stub 
 bornness made him still feel himself to be the injured 
 one. This girl was a Yankee, not his grandchild at 
 all. Care for her he would, care for her he must, as 
 
 44 
 
THE VAGABOND 
 
 a matter of decency. Some needy gentlewoman in 
 Washington would doubtless welcome the task. Be 
 yond that a dozen times the next day he looked in at 
 the room that his wife, his mother, and his grand 
 mother had occupied, making with his own hand some 
 change in keeping with his memory of other days when 
 he was not alone. It was on one of these occasions 
 that the image of the past, the horror of his son s loss, 
 the thought of what might have been, which the prep 
 arations had aroused, made him cry out: "Remember, 
 it is for your new mistress, your new mistress!" No 
 sooner had he spoken than he regretted his outburst 
 of sentiment and sent the open-mouthed, open-eyed 
 servants scurrying, with a reminder that their only 
 business was to look sharp. A Yankee s daughter in 
 Volilla s place ! A strange little girl enthroned in that 
 old house! "She ll be more at home in a boarding- 
 house!" he exclaimed. 
 
 Within an hour he was again in his study, rereading 
 another letter which had arrived at the same time as 
 the ranking lady s. This was written by the ranking 
 officer. The Colonel commanding not only knew how 
 to be brief, but he also understood a gouty, morose 
 old man. "Need I say any more than that your son 
 fell in a manner worthy of a Lanley?" He appended 
 the laconic official report of the action. "The Cap 
 tain s sabre/ 7 he added, "is being sent in the custody 
 of his brave little daughter." No appeal, no Yankee 
 pettifogging in that only a statement of facts ! 
 
 Mr. Lanley looked long at the precious document 
 before he folded it and put it in his strong box. Then 
 he returned to that room and began rearranging the 
 furniture. Yes, he remembered perfectly that in the 
 
 45 
 
THE VAGABOOT) 
 
 spring his wife always shifted her dressing-table to the 
 far corner. 
 
 But on the morning that he set forth for Washing 
 ton he felt as if he were going to repel an invasion. 
 
 "De mist ess room s all ready," Hannah, the nurse, 
 told him. 
 
 "I may not bring her. I may take her to school at 
 once," he replied. 
 
 What was he to do with a girl in that old house ? 
 Probably her blood would assert itself and she would 
 grow up an Abolitionist He had troubles enough 
 with his gout and his debts and his loneliness as the 
 last of his race without this fresh one. Still, he had 
 dressed in his best for the journey. With strangely 
 beating heart, his fingers playing with his watch-fob, 
 he stood, after his long ride, a relentless critic on the 
 station platform. What would she be like ? He pict 
 ured her a freckled, scrawny little vixen, piping and 
 pouting in a nasal twang. Good God ! How should 
 he act if she cried ? If she doubled up her fists and 
 struck and screamed, or fell down in a hysterical fit 
 and kicked and bawled that she "wouldn t she 
 wouldn t, yeh-eh-eh!" He had made a mistake, no 
 doubt (carefully as he had fortified himself against 
 all contingencies), in not bringing the old nurse. 
 Hannah, however, would take any child to her arms 
 and never let it go. He was almost in fear of Han 
 nah, the all-powerful relic of another century. 
 
 "Whatever I do, I sha n t let that Yankee woman 
 that s with her read me any lecture," he growled, as 
 the train approached. 
 
 Keen, young eyes on the lookout for an ogre needed 
 only a glance over the waiting people before the train 
 
 46 
 
THE VAGABOND 
 
 stopped to recognize her fate in the tall, spare figure, 
 with trousers strapped under the insteps, beaver hat, 
 high stock, expansive shirt-bosom, and claw-hammer 
 coat. He was as severe as, and even more sombre 
 than, she had expected. Old generals, she knew, 
 could unbend, for they were in bright uniforms ; this 
 figure in its quiet garb to her eyes gave no more 
 promise of mobility than a column of stone. Her lip 
 trembled ; the tears were starting ; the cry of "Daddy, 
 daddy, do come back to your little girl 1" was rising 
 from her heart to utterance, when she remembered 
 how she had promised the formidable ranking lady 
 to be brave and arm herself with a smile; how, in 
 deed, the ranking lady had said that to snivel in the 
 ogre s presence was to be lost. 
 
 Breaking away from her companion as they stepped 
 from the car, swiftly, desperately, lest her courage 
 should desert her, she ran toward the forbidding arbi 
 ter of her future. On his part, he was conscious of a 
 beautiful child bowing before him and of moist brown 
 eyes, the pupils dilating in trepidation, looking into 
 his. 
 
 "I ve brought you papa s sabre," she pleaded. 
 "You you won t be very cruel not just at first 
 cause I m so tired and mis bul." 
 
 Stiff joints yielded uncomplainingly with his weight 
 as he bent until his face was on a level with hers. The 
 pressure of his lips to her soft cheek sent a tremor 
 through him, inexplicable, strange, benumbing. 
 
 -"Not cruel, not a bit cruel," he said, gently, ab 
 stractedly, as some impulse, a part of this new emotion 
 in his heart, made him stroke the silky hair, whose 
 touch made the tremor a flood of that mysterious in- 
 
 47 
 
THE VAGABOND 
 
 toxication winch lie did not yet recognize as the joy 
 of kinship. 
 
 "Thank you, grandpapa," she said, relieved, but 
 not yet quite assured. 
 
 Her travelling companion now appeared to occupy 
 Mr. Lanley s polite attention, while little Miss General 
 recognized the presence of the most remarkable being 
 of her experience, Marcus Aurelius. A fringe of hair 
 as white as his teeth showed between the antique stove 
 pipe hat and the ebony of his face. Hat and the spike- 
 tailed coat and flaming waistcoat with their big brass 
 buttons were relics of his and his master s youthful 
 days abroad, while he himself was the flower of a 
 regime. There was something in the very sight 
 of him to make a small girl glow with trustful 
 confidence. 
 
 "Doan yo worry," he said, bowing profoundly. 
 "He looks like er cloud dat s gwine t sto m monst us 
 hard, but de sun s des behind. I ll take yo t your 
 keridge, mist ess." 
 
 Mr. Lanley, overhearing, raised his eyebrows, mak 
 ing no objection. Marcus, as well as Hannah, was 
 arbitrary. 
 
 The carriage was a part with master and servant, 
 antique and self-respecting, roomy enough for a whole 
 family. It was difficult to say which was the more 
 wrinkled, the paint on the high box or the face of 
 Josephus, the driver. However, Josephus s coat of 
 varnish was more recent. 
 
 "There s so much of it and it s all very old," she 
 said, when she was seated on the worn cushions. 
 
 "It s de Lanley keridge, an yo is mist ess," said 
 Marcus, as if that were the same as saying, "A heav- 
 
 48 
 
THE VAGABOND 
 
 enlj chariot is yours and all the clouds your private 
 highway." 
 
 "Aren t you going to ride in here, too?" she asked. 
 
 "No, kase my place is on de box. But doan yo 
 worry. Yo s got de real Lanley blood. I kin see it 
 f rough de skin. We ll thaw ole Massa des as easy, yo j 
 an me des as easy as slippin on greased ice." And 
 Marcus bowed and closed the door with a ceremonious 
 slam. 
 
 After Mr. Lanley, in strictest formality, had paid 
 his acknowledgments once more to the lady who had 
 accompanied her, he acted in the uncertain manner 
 of a hermit endeavoring to adapt himself to child 
 hood s humor. 
 
 "Are you comfortable?" he asked. 
 
 "I ve plenty of room, thank you," she replied. 
 
 "Perhaps you d like something under your feet ? " 
 he went on, suggestively. 
 
 "Thank you, if it s it s proper for the mistress of 
 Lanley ton." 
 
 There she had asserted her right, her sense of duty, 
 her blood, and a spirit that lighted his eyes with a 
 gleam of pride. Forthwith, he put the leather cush 
 ions on the box to a more chivalrous service; and the 
 party, unmistakably Virginian to every passer-by, 
 started over the uneven cobbles of Washington, a 
 capital village rather than a capital city in that day, 
 Mr. Lanley riding beside the carriage in silence till 
 she spoke. 
 
 "What a fine horse you have, grandpapa!" 
 
 "No compliment except on his wines could have 
 been more telling. 
 
 "You like horses?" he asked. 
 49 
 
THE .VAGABOND 
 
 "Of course I like em. Daddy was in the cav 
 alry." 
 
 The old man swallowed, his lips twitched, and he 
 looked straight ahead without another word until they 
 were well out into the country. Then he glanced at 
 the carriage-window and studied her face. She would 
 be a beautiful woman, no doubt, he admitted. 
 
 At noon they stopped under the shade of a tree 
 near a spring. While the driver unhitched his horses 
 and fed them, Marcus Aurelius proceeded with the 
 knowing skill of an experienced hand to a function. 
 First he spread a blanket for a carpet and set the cush 
 ions for seats; next a linen cloth with the luncheon, 
 including a quart of Johannisberger for his master. 
 
 "Dere, sah, doan yo talk t me bout yoah hotels !" 
 he observed, surveying his finished task. 
 
 With the liquid sunshine of the Rhine on his 
 palate, the sunshine of his beloved State suffusing the 
 landscape, and that fair young face looking up into 
 his, Mr. Lanley s humor further mellowed; more and 
 more his mind was familiarized with the full reality 
 of a new-born affection. 
 
 "Not so long ago," he said, "this was the only way 
 of travelling in Virginia. Whieh do you like better, 
 our old carriage or a railroad train?" 
 
 "The train is very, very exciting the first time, but 
 I like the carriage better. It s more in-de-pen-dent. 
 It s ours, isn t it?" 
 
 There she struck the Lanley key-note. Quizzically, 
 as an old man will, he had watched for signs of North 
 ern contamination. 
 
 "Ours," he repeated, "ours! Yes, my dear, it is 
 our old carriage." He bent over and kissed her on 
 
 50 
 
THE .VAGABOND 
 
 the cheek. "Your name!" he exclaimed. "Why, I 
 forgot to ask that !" 
 
 "Volilla Bulwer Lanley," she replied. 
 
 Yolilla! It was his wife s name; an old family 
 name. He cupped her small, brown chin in his old, 
 wrinkled hand and kissed her on the lips. 
 
 "Volilla!" he repeated. "Volilla!" 
 
 "Mamma, so daddy said I don t member her 
 when he said, you see, What shall we call our little 
 girl ? why, mamma said, Call her after your mother ; 
 cause then mamma thought maybe you, grandpapa, 
 would forgive her and like me and think she wasn t 
 so so bad. And oh, I oughtn t to have told you! 
 You mustn t say anything against my mamma, 
 cause I couldn t bear it. I love her." 
 
 "No, never," he managed to say, as he rubbed his 
 brows with his finger pathetically and looked into 
 space. His revery showed him, finally, as well as the 
 cruel folly of the past, the hope of all the reparation 
 that the future could make. "Forgive me," he said, 
 pressing his cheek against hers. 
 
 He began his new career at once. While he talked 
 of Virginia and Virginia ways and the plantation and 
 plantation ways, Marcus Aurelius and Josephus, dis 
 membering a fowl, watched furtively the descent of 
 tke contents of the wine-bottle. They knew what 
 their master would say ; the important thing was when 
 he would say it. Ordinarily, he drank little more 
 than a pint ; but on a hot day there was no telling. 
 
 "Well, do you want to wet your rascally tongues?" 
 (The usual formula.) 
 
 Giving wine to servants seemed very remarkable 
 to this frugally trained Northern girl ; the more so as 
 
 51 
 
THE VAGABOND 
 
 it was accompanied by vituperation. Josephus, being 
 nearest, received the bottle. 
 
 "See whar mah thumb is ?" he observed, plausibly, 
 to Marcus. "All b low dat s yoahs." 
 
 With adept quickness, he threw back his head and 
 guzzled all. To make amends for the outrage, the 
 master gave Marcus Aurelius a cigar, which Marcus 
 was to puff patronizingly into Josephus s face on the 
 way home. 
 
 While the horses were being rehitched, Mr. Lanley 
 told about his slaves "two hundred and ten, I think 
 there are, now. One is never quite certain, for a 
 pickaninny may have been born during my absence." 
 He helped her back into the carriage as gallantly as 
 if she were a belle and he a beau of that day when 
 civility, which now stalks abroad alone, had polite 
 ness for its handmaiden. 
 
 "Thank you, grandpapa. You did that very pret 
 tily," she twinkled. 
 
 "I could not have done it awkwardly for you, my 
 dear," he said, and lifted his hat to her ladyship, who 
 thought it the finest "playing house" she had ever 
 known. It was not playing to him. He was actually 
 twenty-one again. 
 
 Now and then he pointed out different objects along 
 the road-side, his thoughts centred on a certain bound 
 ary-line. 
 
 "Here we are, my dear," he cried at last, with 
 enthusiasm that was a stranger to his lips, "here our 
 plantation begins our three thousand acres!" 
 
 "Oh, goody!" she cried; and after some time: "Are 
 we riding clear around the three thousand acres?" 
 
 "No, no, my dear. The house is quite in the cen- 
 52 
 
THE VAGABOND 
 
 tre of the plantation. There, there!" He pointed 
 with the eagerness of a boy. "There! you can see it!" 
 
 Carriage and rider halted. Through a grove, on 
 the summit of a hill, in the afternoon sun blinked 
 the Doric pillars of Lanleyton, and above them, as if 
 sitting on the tree-tops, a white cupola. The master 
 was not looking in that direction himself, but at Yolil- 
 la s face, beaming with wonder; for it was a long 
 time since he had enjoyed the great pleasure of giving 
 pleasure to others. She drew a sigh and sat up a 
 little straighter before she spoke. 
 
 "Am I to be the only lady in that big, big house, 
 and of of the three thousand acres?" she asked. 
 
 "Yes, my dear." 
 
 "It s a great sponsibility," she said. "I ll try 
 I ll try ever so hard, grandpapa." 
 
 Marcus Aurelius and Josephus paid no attention 
 to the servants who came running from the house, to 
 the hands from the quarters, or even to the pickanin 
 nies who turned handsprings as the carriage went up 
 the drive with stately deliberation, its occupant as se 
 renely dignified as if she were used to such ovations 
 and to the hypercritical scrutiny of the mammies. 
 Without any of the gouty "ohs" or "ahs" to which he 
 was given, Mr. Lanley dismounted. With his own 
 hand he opened the door of the carriage and assisted 
 her ladyship to alight. 
 
 "Thank you, grandpapa," she said, with the same 
 easy confidence of playing house. "I m so glad to be 
 home." 
 
 Seizing her in his arms and carrying her shoulder 
 high, with the strength of his impulse and his great 
 joy, he mounted the steps, and turning to that black 
 
 53 
 
THE VAGABOND 
 
 shadow spattered with gleaming teeth and eyeballs, 
 cried: 
 
 "My people, this is your new mistress! You are to 
 obey her every word as you would mine." 
 
 Clasped tightly in her hands was her father s 
 sheathed sabre whose blade still had a battle edge. 
 Her grandfather had only faint apprehension, and she 
 had none, of the clouds which were already lowering 
 on that proud old house, whose white pillars seemed 
 as stable as the distant heights of the Blue Kidges. 
 
VI 
 
 OR STIFF OLD DRILL SERGEANTS 
 
 Billy recognized in Captain Bob Herrick, U. S. A., 
 a wholly different type of man from the fat police 
 man and Abe Parkins. The policeman had been an 
 Abe Parkins in uniform. The Captain was an en 
 tirely new order of being. Cunning would no longer 
 avail; and, besides, it had become hateful. Our run 
 away developed the courage of desperation and of his 
 convictions. The smile faded and the whistle died on 
 his lips. In a voice that trembled as an engine does, 
 with force, he narrated his story Ann, father, Latin, 
 the mountain all, except the girl. The prisoner 
 who had broken no laws spoke; the prisoner at last 
 free, bent on a definite object, sought only a fair field. 
 
 "You, sir, a big man, an old man/ he cried, "would 
 you stop a boy who hasn t harmed you? Would 
 you, you, a big man, rob a boy of his liberty for fifty 
 dollars for just fifty dollars?" 
 
 His words came faster with his growing indigna 
 tion; his head was thrown back defiantly; his blue 
 eyes, unusually tranquil, in nowise belying the fire 
 underneath, received the enemy s shafts as the calm 
 sea receives bolts of lightning. All the soldierly sen 
 timent of Captain Herrick s nature was aroused by 
 such courage under fire. 
 
 65 
 
THE VAGABOND 
 
 "By the Eternal!" he exclaimed, professional acu 
 men triumphant, "I d like to enlist you!" 
 
 "Will you stop me?" Billy repeated. "Will you, 
 a big man, stop a boy just for fifty dollars?" 
 
 "Stop you! Bob Herrick ain t been in the United 
 States regular army for forty years without ever 
 turning a red cent except his pay to start kidnapping 
 now! Stop you! By the Eternal, I ll line up, dip the 
 colors and salute you, you freckled little cuss!" Over 
 that face, all fine-drawn lines of sternness, played 
 now, in the mobile change of each one, a veritable 
 witches dance of amusement and good-humor. "Stop 
 you! Lord Almighty, no!" He had passed into the 
 full-worded habit of the mess-room where officers 
 make amends for few-worded routine. "Not un 
 less" and there he sniggered high up in his nose, 
 quizzically "not unless you re hungry. How d you 
 like to come in and have a big piece of p-i-e?" 
 
 "A piece of pie so you can lock me in?" Billy 
 asked. 
 
 The Captain s expression again became as firm as 
 that of sheet-iron. 
 
 "Do I look like a man who would lie?" he de 
 manded. 
 
 "No, sir. You would not lie I m sure you 
 wouldn t; and I d like that piece of pie very much if 
 you could change a twenty-dollar gold piece for it." 
 
 "Come along, you vagabond!" (That nickname 
 stuck.) 
 
 "Yes, sir," and Billy sprang to his side with the 
 impulse of an appetite born of a brief but intense con 
 templation of pie. 
 
 "That s right. Spoken like a soldier. Always say 
 56 
 
THE VAGABOND 
 
 sir. Conversation needs a handle as much as a skillet, 
 and the boy that uses the handle won t get his fingers 
 burnt/ 
 
 The Captain led the way to his living-room, which 
 was indubitably that of a man of action. On the shelf 
 was an English translation of Caesar s Commentaries, 
 of Jomini, and a few other works equally unrelated 
 to the arts of peace. On the walls were Indian bows, 
 arrow-heads, and head-dresses, and, what was of more 
 moment to the boy, an engraving of the City of Mexi 
 co with Popocatapetl bulking out of perspective in the 
 background. 
 
 "Have you ever climbed that, sir?" Billy asked, 
 forgetting all else. 
 
 "No. I went up a good piece. I don t undertake 
 to say how high it is, but it s a regular rip-snorter of 
 a mountain." 
 
 "Seventeen thousand feet, sir." Billy knew the 
 height of all the big mountains of the world by heart. 
 
 "I suppose you d just shin right up to the top, first 
 off." 
 
 "I d try hard, sir. Think what a lot you d see 
 you d see, sir!" 
 
 He continued to ask questions about Popocatapetl 
 until a servant brought something more edible. 
 
 "You can t work your outsides unless you fill up 
 your insides," said the Captain. "Set to, double 
 quick!" 
 
 The Vagabond sat down in the august presence of 
 big slices of cold chicken and beef , a half loaf of bread, 
 a pot of jam, a piece of pie, and a pitcher of milk. 
 
 It is one of the rare privileges of old age to watch 
 a boy eat. The Captain s palate tickled with every 
 
 57 
 
THE VAGABOND 
 
 mouthful that ascended on the fast-plied fork; and 
 this continued scrutiny increased his admiration for 
 his guest, whose sore hands and gingerly manner of 
 sitting on the edge of the chair left no doubt of the 
 truth of the latest particulars of his tale. 
 
 "I was a runaway boy myself/ said the Captain. 
 
 "You were !" cried Billy, rapturously. "Oh, I 
 should like to hear all about it." 
 
 "Yes, sir. I ran away in the year 1800. That s 
 a pretty long while ago, ain t it? I was bound out for 
 my keep and I didn t like it nohow. I ran as fast as 
 I could to the sea and got aboard a ship, a sailor for to 
 be, as the saying goes. And what do you think I 
 sailed? I sailed the pots and pans about the galley 
 for a cross-eyed cook! Yes, sir, I seen a good deal of 
 the world by sea and then I started out to see some 
 of it by land. That s how I came to be carrying a 
 musket in 1812." 
 
 "You fought in the war of 1812!" cried Billy. 
 "You you didn t fight at Lundy s Lane, did you?" 
 Unconsciously he had hit upon the Captain s favorite 
 theme. 
 
 "Did I ? Well, I guess I did, harder n I ever fit 
 before or expect to fight again. We fought the 
 British there. It s Lundy s Lane that got me my 
 commission but not till fifteen years after, for I m 
 a pretty old man to be a Captain, I ll allow. Well, 
 sir, I was carrying a musket for fifteen years before 
 General Scott Colonel Scott he was then came 
 along inspecting a Post out West and says: What! 
 You still a sergeant ? Yes, sir, he remembered the 
 youngster that picked up a stand of colors against a 
 Britisher s protest a Britisher s ineffectual protest, 
 
 68 
 
THE VAGABOND 
 
 sir. And General Scott shook up the arm-chairs in 
 Washington and made me a lieutenant, sir! Yes, sir, 
 and I helped pay him back down in Mexico two years 
 ago. There was a campaign for you a campaign 
 done to a chalk line! No rough-and-ready, whoop- 
 it-up, don t-know-where-your-commissary-is, never- 
 mind-your-flankers style for him. He waited till he 
 was good and ready and then he hit the greasers in 
 the pit of the stummick, and before they could get 
 their breath he hit em again, and kept hitting em 
 again quiet and easy-like all the way to hellangone* 
 and the City of Mexico. And now, sir, what is Con 
 gress going to do ? It s going to investigate General 
 Scott! Investigate General Scott!" 
 
 After this explosion the Captain wondered why his 
 enthusiasm should have carried him so far in a recital 
 unsuited for a boy s ears. 
 
 Except for the conclusion that it was a great out 
 rage, the Vagabond was very much in doubt both 
 about General Scott and the investigation. However, 
 the interest showing in his face was that of an intense 
 partisan. It seemed scarcely possible that he was not 
 in a dream. Did this old soldier, did the food and the 
 curios on the wall, really exist? 
 
 "Have you ever been around the world clear 
 around?" he asked, as if an affirmative were too good 
 to believe. 
 
 "Twice ! Sailing pots and pans the first time ; reef 
 ing sails the second." 
 
 "Well, you you," said Billy, slowly, as he 
 dropped his knife and fork, "you are just the man I 
 wanted to meet." 
 
 Had the Captain seen the Andes and the Hima- 
 59 
 
THE VAGABOND 
 
 layas? He fired a fusillade of questions while he fin 
 ished his meal ; and then his host a thing he had not 
 done since he came to the Post told him the story of 
 his trophies, from antlers to Indian arrows. "That 
 head-dress I got from Crouching Eagle under Tippe- 
 canoe William Henry Harrison, against the red dev 
 il s intentions, too." And Billy asked, "How ?" as he 
 did to every statement. "Well, sir, he tried to toma 
 hawk me, but I hit him first. It s a great virtue, that 
 of hitting the other fellow first, son. Saves yourself 
 trouble He ! he ! and the other fellow, too." 
 
 Never had the Captain had so appreciative a listen 
 er. He grew young in heart with the pleasure of 
 entertaining youth. At the same time that he felt 
 foolish, this veteran, telling a boy the story of his life, 
 he was more elated than he had been for many a year. 
 When he had explained the origin of a Toledo blade 
 captured at Mexico, the last article on the wall whose 
 history was untold, he said: 
 
 "Now, sitting doesn t seem to be exactly in your 
 department to-day. You ll have to lie down the way 
 most of the greasers that was wounded did in hospi 
 tal on your belly. Take that lounge there!" 
 
 Resting his chin on his hands, one leg in the air, 
 the Vagabond looked at the Captain with a wistful- 
 ness that not only called for more but sought to fore 
 stall the breaking of his dream. 
 
 "After the war, General Scott sent me out here," 
 the Captain went on. "He said it was a good place to 
 rest. Tis too good! I belong a little farther West. 
 I don t feel at home with these young West Pointers. 
 When it comes to drawing a fort out of your head I 
 can t quite keep step. Handling infantry s my busi- 
 
 60 
 
THE VAGABOND 
 
 ness; handling it in a war, sir. Yes, sir, and as it Hap 
 pens, they ve discovered gold in California and they 
 need soldiers out there." 
 
 "Gold! Gold!" repeated the Vagabond. For after 
 the girl was the mountain, and after the mountain the 
 mine. 
 
 "Yes, sir, gold ! The Americans found it after the 
 Spanish had been looking for it for two centuries. 
 Yes, sir. So General Scott s sending my company to 
 Frisco. There ll be plenty of work out there and 
 room to swing a cat without catching its claws in a 
 New England town meeting, and that s what Bob 
 Herrick likes. Going straight around the Horn in a 
 brig called the Natty Nancy, Captain Jabez Goodrich 
 commanding." 
 
 Around the Horn to the Eocky Mountains in a ship 
 whose very name tripped like an adventurous boy s 
 heart-beats ! And there was gold in the Rocky Moun 
 tains and the girl was there ! His eyelids were almost 
 splitting, while his imagination soared. He supposed 
 that he ought to say something, and he said "Yes, sir," 
 with a great sigh of longing. 
 
 That sigh went straight to the Captain s heart. He 
 had never seen hope and anticipation so strongly pict 
 ured on any human face as in the freckled one before 
 him. Sixty years of ill-health is selfishly edging tow 
 ard comfort ; sixty years of good health finds its hap 
 piness in the happiness of others. He knew what a 
 lift would have meant to him when he was running 
 away. The project that entered his mind was worthy 
 of his eccentricity and his great heart. Suddenly he 
 put on his full official severity of manner and de 
 meanor. 
 
THE VAGABOND 
 
 "There s three kinds of skunks in this world," he 
 said; "quitters, cheap quitters, and derned cheap quit 
 ters. A quitter s the fellow that drops into a ditch 
 when the charge is sounded; a cheap quitter s the fel 
 low that falls out on the march to the fight; a derned 
 cheap quitter s the fellow that gets engaged to all the 
 girls he can fore he enlists and whoops it up like a 
 brass band, but gets the belly-ache and goes to the 
 hospital as soon as there s any work to do. Yes, sir. 
 And what kind of a quitter are you ?" 
 
 The Captain asked the question savagely. The 
 boy s eyes, which had met his unflinchingly, met them 
 unflinchingly still, only he thrust his square chin for 
 ward indignantly. 
 
 "I m no kind of a quitter," he said, decidedly. 
 
 He had passed the recruit s examination without 
 knowing it. The Captain hitched his chair over be 
 side the Vagabond with something of the caution and 
 zest of a boy who is approaching the shelf where 
 abides the jam-pot. 
 
 "Say," he asked, unctuously, "how d you like to be 
 my boy ? How d you like to go to California with " 
 
 A pair of arms flew around the Captain s neck in 
 choking embrace. 
 
 "Oh, sir, honest, honest?" the Vagabond cried. 
 
 "Honest Injun, if you don t hug me to death." 
 
 "You you re just the man I ve been looking for. 
 I m so happy I don t know what to say." 
 
 "You ain t taken the oath yet," added the Captain. 
 "Stand up in the middle of the room, heels together, 
 head thrown back. There, that s right! Now, you 
 promise on your honor as a soldier that you ll get up 
 every morning at reveille?" 
 
 62 
 
THE VAGABOND 
 
 "Yes, sir." 
 
 "You won t snivel about it? You ll never snivel ? * 
 
 "No, sir. I didn t snivel once while I was running 
 away." 
 
 "Course you didn t. S pose a man forty years in 
 the United States Army d want you round if you had ? 
 Promise you ll never "be sassy; you ll never call me 
 Cap, but always Captain; you ll learn the manual of 
 arms till you can do it slick as a sergeant-major?" 
 
 "Yes, sir." 
 
 "So help me God!" the Captain concluded, almost 
 fiercely. 
 
 "So help me God!" the Vagabond repeated, im 
 pressively. 
 
 And then the Captain became the bigger boy of the 
 two. The Vagabond asked questions, and would have 
 gone on asking questions all night if the Captain had 
 not had a bed made on the couch and warned him that 
 it was time to turn in. 
 
 "I m just too happy to sleep," said the Vagabond; 
 but fatigue showed otherwise, and his last words as he 
 dropped off were: "Around the Horn to the Rocky 
 Mountains the Natty Nancy, Captain Jabez Good 
 rich. Just think of it !" 
 
 The shadow of the Captain s body was between the 
 candle on the table and the couch. For some time 
 he sat in revery, wondering what had made him adopt 
 a runaway on an hour s acquaintance. He tried to 
 analyze the Vagabond s charm and could not. It was 
 impalpable and omnipresent. Whenever he had his 
 folly in bold relief as quickly was it dissipated by the 
 picture of the boy as he recited his story; by a yearn 
 ing in his heart, common to all bachelors with neither 
 
 63 
 
THE VAGABOND 
 
 kith nor kin, which had been satisfied by an affection. 
 Finally, he arose to go above to his living-room, but 
 stopped on the stair. He had forgotten a certain func 
 tion for the first time since his incumbency at this 
 Post. So he returned to the sideboard and poured out 
 a good two fingers of the best New Bedford. On the 
 plains, "where a man lives a natural life," he forewent 
 the precaution; but in the East he regarded his con 
 stitutional night-cap as the one preventive of what he 
 called the "fevers of civilization." 
 
 Back on the stair, he paused again. What was that 
 he heard? His adopted son had awakened and was 
 sobbing. He returned and put the candle on the table. 
 
 "Well, well!" he said, loudly. 
 
 The Vagabond rose from his pillow. 
 
 "I m not snivelling, honest I m not," he said, pas 
 sionately. "I m ashamed of myself. I was mean and 
 selfish. I was so happy I forgot Tim Booker. I can t 
 go unless he goes, too. Tim and I made a bargain. I 
 was to wait for him and he was to catch up and go 
 with me." 
 
 The old man had changed into the drill-sergeant in 
 stantly, and perplexity was added to his severity, as 
 he stood with one hand on the table looking even more 
 severe than he had at the barrack gates. He felt as 
 if he had been cheated. His feeling and his actions 
 had been on the basis which pleased him of a boy 
 who had been projected from the clouds, unattended 
 and unconnected, into his care. And he was a man 
 of the quickest decision in all matters. 
 
 "Well, sir, I can t take two !" he said, sharply. 
 
 No Natty Nancy! No voyage around the Horn! 
 Two thousand miles on foot to the Kocky Mountains I 
 
 M 
 
THE VAGABOND 
 
 Billy gulped two or three times. He moistened his 
 lips with the tip of his tongue. A wavering, almost 
 inaudible, whistle passed between them and a forced 
 smile overspread his face in slow effort. 
 
 "Then, sir," he said, with his head thrown back, 
 "night s my best time for travelling, and I want to get 
 away from those notices, where I can write to Tim." 
 
 "God Almighty!" exclaimed the Captain, abstract 
 edly, in his admiration. "But I d like to enlist you!" 
 
 Billy had risen and was valiantly reaching for his 
 hat. 
 
 "No," said the Captain, still severely, "you stay 
 here all night and all day to-morrow and rest up. 
 Then you can travel faster. You needn t worry. 
 IVe given the word that there s no use of looking for 
 you here, and when you give the word in the army 
 there s an end of it. "We aren t concealing runaway 
 boys, no, sir ! As for our bargain, it was for one one 
 
 With that, the Captain picked up the candle and 
 stamped up the stairs with mixed feelings of regret, 
 chagrin, and rage. 
 
yn 
 
 UNXESS THEY TAKE TO REASONING 
 
 Certain that his dream was shattered, by nature of 
 the kind that does not cry over spilt milk but looks 
 sharply to the remaining whole jars, of the two the 
 Vagabond slept better than his host. In the middle 
 of the night the Captain found himself awake and 
 saying : 
 
 "There s loyalty for you! There s a tent-mate! 
 There s a boy to set an example to the laggards on the 
 march! * 
 
 His guest was still asleep when he descended the 
 stairs at sun-up. He drew the curtains to keep out 
 the light, and tiptoed out of the room, finding in this 
 solicitude a pleasurable sensation that he could not 
 explain. For some time he walked up and down in 
 the barrack enclosure, and when he re-entered his 
 quarters the Vagabond was awake and cheerful too 
 cheerful for the Captain s self-esteem. 
 
 "Seems to me," said the host at breakfast, "that 
 you ve got a pretty big job on your hands, walking 
 clear to the Rocky Mountains." 
 
 "Yes, sir. That s why I ll like it if I can only get 
 away from those notices. Those notices aren t fair." 
 
 This was precisely the soldier s own opinion, and he 
 came near declaring as much, emphatically. 
 
 "But you ll meet with a lot of obstacles," he per 
 sisted. "It ain t thickly settled like it is here a lot 
 of obstacles!" 
 
 66 
 
THE VAGABOND 
 
 "Yes, sir; that will make it interesting. Don t you 
 like surprises, sir?" 
 
 "Hm-m-m! Not so much as I did when I was a 
 boy." 
 
 "Maybe I like surprises because I haven t had any. 
 I feel just as if a lot was owed me." 
 
 "What if that friend of yours, Mr. Booker " 
 
 "Tim Booker. It s too funny to call Tim Mister!" 
 
 "What if Tim Booker, when he comes after you 
 what if he don t want to go to the Rocky Mountains ?" 
 
 "He said he d travel just as far as I wanted. He 
 wants to see the world, too." 
 
 The Captain coughed. He was a little jealous of 
 Tim Booker. Besides, he was wroth with his sol 
 dierly self for harping on a matter which he had al 
 ready dismissed with a decision. Nevertheless, he went 
 on somewhat querulously for him, very querulously : 
 
 "You must like Tim pretty well to hoof it to the 
 Rockies with him, instead of having a ride on a ship 
 all the way." 
 
 "It isn t liking. It s sticking by Tim when I said 
 I would." Billy s eyes grew moist with the thought 
 of what he had lost. "Oh, sir, I wish you wouldn t 
 say anything more about that. It makes the shivers 
 go up and down my back." 
 
 "Very good," said the Captain. He hitched up a 
 little closer to the table and scowled at his coffee-cup. 
 "What kind of a man is this this Tim Booker?" he 
 asked, with drill-sergeant acerbity. 
 
 "Oh, he s the best fellow that ever was, and the 
 biggest liar," was the fitting description. 
 
 "Liar! liar!" thundered the Captain. "And you 
 choose to run away with him!" 
 
 67 
 
THE VAGABOND 
 
 "But his eyes always twinkle when he lies. He 
 just lies for fun." 
 
 "For fun!" roared the Captain. 
 
 "He makes up stories to amuse you, but you look at 
 him sharp and he tells the truth every time. He s all 
 truth and heart and a good fellow, is Tim." 
 
 "How does he walk? Like this?" The Captain 
 jumped to his feet and slouched across the room, his 
 breast sunk between his shoulders in imitation of a 
 lout. 
 
 "!N"o, sir; like this!" was Billy s indignant response; 
 and he arose and made a circuit around the Captain 
 with his head thrown back and his hands in his pock 
 ets. "That s where I learned it myself," he added, 
 proudly. 
 
 "The devil you did!" The Captain took two or 
 three turns on his own account, and coming to a stand 
 still abruptly, said: "Mind, I m not holding out any 
 promises; no, sir! But I m going to send for Mr. 
 Booker. Maybe we can patch up some kind of an ar 
 rangement." 
 
 "Will you! Will you!" Billy cried, his words pal 
 pitating with joy. "I ll write to Tim at once!" 
 
 "Yes, only I ll tell you what to say. Remember, 
 no false hopes!" The Captain placed ink and paper 
 on the table. "Captain Robert Herrick, U. S. A.," 
 he dictated, while the quill creaked, "has offered to 
 adopt me and take me to California. He would con 
 sider it a favor if you would come to this Post to con 
 fer with him about the matter. Yours truly." 
 
 "Is that all?" Billy asked, rubbing the feather 
 against his chin. 
 
 "Yes, alL A soldier is brief, my son, always brief." 
 68 
 
THE VAGABOND 
 
 "Mayn t I just add a few words here ?" He pointed 
 below his signature. 
 
 "What?" 
 
 "This, sir," and the Vagabond scribbled beneath 
 the formal sentences: "Tim, please do hurry up." 
 
 This oddity of a letter was sealed and sent and the 
 Vagabond remained the Captain s guest, while that 
 notice of "Fifty Dollars Keward" still stared from the 
 pillar at the passers-by. On the third day Tim, at 
 tired in store clothes, was ushered into the Captain s 
 room. His first act was to shake Billy and his next 
 to hold him out at arms length and scan him from 
 head to foot fondly all this quite regardless of the 
 presence of a third person. 
 
 "Say, Billy, that train I rode on went a hundred 
 miles an hour." 
 
 "No train goes a hundred miles an hour!" said the 
 Captain, sharply. 
 
 "This one did," drawled Tim, lowering one eyelid 
 a little "while I was telling the story." 
 
 The Captain fairly snorted. This seemed to amuse 
 Tim, who was still inwardly laughing at the "plumb 
 dumb foolishness" of that man in uniform pacing up 
 and down between the pillars. It seemed to him that 
 it would not be quite as great a waste of energy if the 
 sentry were given a teething baby to hold. 
 
 "That s only one of Tim s jokes," said the Vaga 
 bond, trying to play the diplomat in this critical mo 
 ment. 
 
 "It s no time for joking, sir," said the Captain, in 
 his most official tone. "Let us get to business. I 
 have proposed to adopt this boy and take him with me 
 to California. Yes, sir, I propose to make him my 
 
 69 
 
THE VAGABOND 
 
 own son. But it seems, sir, that you Lave a bargain 
 with him to travel together. I hope, sir, you aren t 
 going to interfere with his opportunity. I hope, sir, 
 you will see the point and release him." 
 
 The Captain s tone was as fierce as his gaze. Tim 
 replied, blandly: 
 
 "No, sir. I m all ready to travel. No, sir, I won t 
 release him. Do you stick to me, Billy?" 
 
 "Yes," Billy faltered. 
 
 "Yes, he does!" roared the Captain. "He s loyal. 
 On my word, do you realize what you are doing?" 
 
 He proceeded to harangue Tim at length, and fairly 
 lost his temper when he found that no military 
 brusqueness could faze the big, self-respecting farm 
 hand, a fact which tended to raise Tim in his esteem. 
 
 "Well," said Tim, "I ve got the gold fever about as 
 bad as any man that ever hoed corn for sixteen dollars 
 a month. Suppose you let me go long on the Natty 
 Nancy. I guess I ve got enough to pay my fare." 
 
 "Yes, yes, let s!" Billy cried. He sprang into the 
 middle of the room and saluted, his smile and his eyes 
 speaking for him with an eloquence greater than 
 words. "If you ll let Tim go, Captain, I ll have my 
 breakfast before reveille, I ll go to bed an hour before 
 taps, I ll do the manual of arms a dozen times a day!" 
 
 The Captain scowled and looked away from them 
 both in thought. When he looked back he had turned 
 the catechist. 
 
 "California s some distance from apple-pies," he 
 said. "You ever get homesick, Tim Booker?" 
 
 "Yes, I did once when I was home. That s why 
 I run away." 
 
 "Now, Mr. Booker, suppose you d marched till your 
 .70 
 
THE VAGABOND 
 
 pack was a lump of lead; yes, sir, of burning lead! 
 Suppose your tongue was swelling from thirst; sup 
 pose the sun was a furnace that kept your shirt wet 
 and didn t dry it, parboiling your back. Suppose 
 there was five miles to do fore camp and all you d get 
 when twas pitched was sow-belly (bacon) n hard 
 tack. Suppose, then, you stumbled on a piece of fruit 
 right in your path, nice, big, juicy fruit! What d 
 you do?" 
 
 "Well," Tim replied, "I d be thinking, considering 
 circumstances, I had about all I could carry." 
 
 "The fruit, sir! What d you do with the fruit?" 
 
 "Nothing. I wouldn t want to carry any more on 
 my back, and if I tried to carry it on an empty stom 
 ach I d get the colic." 
 
 "Mr. Booker!" The Captain threw back his shoul 
 ders to add force to the eulogy, "I ve asked a thousand 
 rookies that question. They all tried to say something 
 real smart, so what did they say? Yes, sir, what did 
 they say? They said they d divide with the next fel 
 low in the ranks! Then, sir, two d have the belly 
 ache!" he concluded, triumphantly. 
 
 "I don t see much good in that, cept they d be com- 
 p ny for one nuther," Tim rejoined. 
 
 The Captain slapped his knees, while he laughed 
 heartily: 
 
 "You ve got a sense of humor, sir," he kept repeat 
 ing, "a sense of humor, sir! Only they wouldn t be 
 company. One d say the other d poisoned him, and 
 the other d call him an ingrate. Mr. Booker, I m a 
 soldier and you re not. At first thought, we re not the 
 kind to get on together at all. But, Mr. Booker, you 
 hold your head up ; you look me in the eye, sir. I want 
 
 71 
 
THE VAGABOOT) 
 
 you to come along and I ll arrange it with Captain 
 Jabez Goodrich, sir." 
 
 The Vagabond s joy was too great for expression in 
 words he hugged the Captain. 
 
 "Thank you, sir," said Tim, finally. The Captain 
 had used so many "sirs" that Tim thought he could 
 afford one himself. "You ve been square with me 
 and I ll be square with you, sir. Honest, I didn t in 
 tend to stand in Billy s way to the last. I wanted to 
 see how much Billy cared for me. I m dreffle fond 
 of him I m so fond of him I wouldn t do anything 
 to hurt his chances. If I ll be any bother, you take 
 Billy and leave me behind." 
 
 "I m damned if I do!" roared the Captain. "After 
 speaking up like that, you go with us, Mr. Booker; 
 yes, sir, you go with us!" 
 
 This seemed to settle the matter for good and all; 
 and it would if the Captain had not happened to re 
 read that notice on the pillar carefully. As a conse 
 quence, he not only appreciated Judge John Will- 
 iams s importance in the world, but he recalled a bit 
 of information from the Vagabond s own tale, name 
 ly, that the Judge was the Vagabond s uncle. Start 
 ing with this premise, argument after argument rose 
 in opposition to his course. First of all, he was 
 literally stealing a boy from his guardian ; and who 
 should obey the law if not a soldier ? he asked him 
 self. The Judge, he learned, was a bachelor, with no 
 family ties in the world except his nephew, and here 
 was a man of honor proposing to take a ward from a 
 lawful guardian by stealth. When his doubts had 
 gone this far, he sought the confidence of Tim ; and 
 together, when Billy was entertaining himself to his 
 
 72 
 
THE VAGABOND 
 
 heart s content by drawing pictures, they walked 
 across the fields in consultation. All the Captain s 
 fears became Tim s. 
 
 "Now you look at it in that way," Tim said, in that 
 drawl which stood for the bed-rock of his nature, 
 "that s what we are a pair of kidnappers. I guess, 
 though you are a soldier and I m a farm-hand, there s 
 something between us. We re both chockf ul of senti 
 ment. We ain t either of us got any kith or kin, and 
 we re so independent we re selfish. I guess because 
 ninety-nine out of a hundred men would laugh at us 
 for a pair of fools that don t make us any less so. 
 All we ve been thinking of is our own pleasure. Billy 
 has a way with him a way of talking up and looking 
 at you with those blue eyes of his that makes you 
 want to help him get what he wants." 
 
 By the Eternal! That s it exactly," assented the 
 Captain. "The way he told his story to me well, 
 sir, I ve never been so affected before in my life. I 
 was a boy again. I don t mean in imagination; I 
 mean in the flesh, in the heart!" 
 
 "Well, I seen him live what he told you. I seen 
 him smiling when he was in jail, smiling to think of 
 how he was going to travel one day and climb his 
 mountain. Well, I was a vagabond at heart myself. 
 I wanted to travel with him. I wanted him to have 
 his heart s desire. Come to think of it, about all we 
 can do for him is to show him the mountain. In the 
 world as we know it, that ain t much. Why, if a vote 
 of Belmore County was to be taken on who d make 
 the best guardian of a boy, the Judge d win out by a 
 whopping majority. He can do everything you 9 n ? I, 
 as I look at it, can t do. Why, he will send him to col- 
 
 73 
 
THE VAGABOND 
 
 lege, probably Harvard or Yale!" (To college! In 
 these days we scarcely appreciate the charm of the 
 word in the New England of 49.) "No, sir, we 
 haven t got any right, Captain. We re playing fairy 
 story. We re a pair of sentimental fools God please 
 you, I m proud of being one! but we ve no right to 
 rob that boy of his opportunities." 
 
 It was the longest, most serious speech Tim had 
 ever made, and it throbbed from the depths of his 
 nature. 
 
 "No, sir, we ve not ; no, sir !" said the Captain, with 
 decision. "We ve got to turn him over to the Judge 
 and there s an end of it. But who s going to tell 
 him?" the veteran asked, almost fearfully. "I ve 
 stormed Chapultepec and I ve fought Injuns hand to 
 hand and British regulars face to face all day long; 
 but that s nothing beside this job. I ll start, but if I 
 begin to stumble on account of the way he looks at 
 me with those blue eyes, you ve got to jump in and 
 help me out." 
 
 "I will. The two of us ought to make it together 
 all right. If I had to do it alone I d want to be blind 
 folded." 
 
 So the pair, their minds made up, walked back 
 slowly and found Billy drawing a portrait of the ser 
 geant-major, while he artfully gleaned much about 
 the personality of a certain girl, the information as to 
 her charms as a "good fellow" entirely according with 
 his expectations. The Captain asked him to come in 
 side, and after "We ve something to tell you," and 
 several coughs, with the assistance of Tim, he made his 
 decision known. Of the three, the boy was the most 
 masterful. He threw back his head; he whistled the 
 
THE VAGABOND 
 
 dismallest of trills and he forced a smile, as Tim had 
 bidden him, the while he looked at Tim, who shifted 
 his gaze to the wall. His wondering blue eyes said 
 "And thou, too, Brutus 7 ? His quivering lips, mak 
 ing no sound, bespoke his misery over the revelation 
 of friends turned enemies. Thus he shamed them, 
 and also with his grave taciturnity which bespoke a 
 heart too full for utterance. To the announcement by 
 the Captain that they would start for Belmore on the 
 morrow, he replied, "Yes, sir" ; and a "yes, sir," or 
 "no, sir," was the most that he said. His elders were 
 embarrassed, and, truth to tell, almost in tears. Billy 
 sat for some time quite still after they had left the 
 room in search of change and relief from his appeal 
 ing eyes. Then he went to the table, screwed his legs 
 around the leg of a chair, and picking up the quill 
 wrote: 
 
 FRIENDS: 
 
 "No doubt you think you are doing what is best for 
 me. There is just where we disagree. I suppose, as 
 you say, most boys would be glad to have such a 
 guardian as the Judge. I don t know any other boys. 
 I just know what kind of a boy I am myself. I just 
 know that I wouldn t like to live with the Judge. 
 For I looked him over very carefully. He would be 
 all the worse because he looks and acts so wise. He 
 would put his hand on my head and twiddle his watch- 
 fob and say: Now, go learn your lessons, William, 
 and maybe you will know as much as I do some day. 
 I don t want to know as much about the same things 
 he does. I want to know about things he don t know 
 about. There s where we disagree, and what is the 
 
 75 
 
THE VAGABOND 
 
 good when you disagree? Why, when you disagree, 
 you go your way and the other fellow goes his. 
 
 "I don t see what claim the Judge has got on me. 
 He never came to our place before my father died. 
 All he thinks is, I have got to take care of this little 
 boy, I suppose, and look wise and smile sometimes, as 
 a matter of duty. I don t want to be his son, and, 
 when he does not want me, why should I? My bar 
 gain with you, Tim, was to run away. My bargain 
 with the Captain was to go around the Horn. You 
 broke your bargains. You remember I asked you, 
 Captain, if you invited me into your house just to 
 lock me in. I liked you both so much, you have al 
 most broken my heart. But I would not be very much 
 of a man if I stopped travelling because two friends 
 deserted me. 
 
 "I do not think it exactly fair of you to help the 
 Judge. I suppose it is because you are so old you do 
 not understand a boy s heart I don t want you to 
 feel hard toward me, either, for doing what I cannot 
 help. All the time I lived in that old house I was 
 thinking of the time when I should be free. When it 
 seemed so hard being shut up because it seemed just 
 as if I was born to travel, I used to pluck up my cour 
 age thinking that some day I would have a mountain 
 all to myself. Now I am free I will not go into bond 
 age again. As soon as I get away from those notices 
 I will get along all right. A boy can sleep almost 
 anywhere. I never did like feather-beds. They are 
 too stuffy, anyway. A boy can earn enough to eat, 
 you said so, Tim, so long as he holds his head up. 
 Maybe I will be three or four years reaching the 
 Rocky Mountains." (Here he had an impulse to tell 
 
 76 
 
THE VAGABOND 
 
 tuho had gone to the Kocky Mountains before him, 
 what an object he had. But the girl was his secret, 
 which he vowed never to share with anyone.) "What 
 if I am three or four years? I ll be moving all the 
 time ; moving, moving, and that is what I have always 
 said I would do when I was free. You said it right, 
 Captain, when you said I was a vagabond. The Judge 
 may catch me, but he cannot keep me. Tell him that 
 for me, so he will know that I gave him fair warning. 
 I will run away from him every chance I get and keep 
 on running until I am away for good. 
 
 "There, that is all, I guess. I have written a lot 
 because I feel such a lot. I am leaving all the money 
 you gave me, Tim, except what I spent. I will pay 
 back the rest as soon as I can. Thank you, Tim, for 
 all your good advice and making me laugh so often 
 when I needed laughs a lot. It is hard to say good- 
 by, but I must. Good-by, Tim. Good-by, Captain. 
 I hate to sneak away, but I must. 
 
 "Yours truly, 
 
 "BILLY. 
 
 "P. S. I am leaving some pictures I drew of you 
 both, to remember me by." 
 
 The letter was finished and fast in the Vaga 
 bond s pocket when the Captain and Tim returned to 
 the little sitting-room. Through the rest of the day 
 he was as tractable as ever, if he had little to say. 
 After his elders were asleep he placed the folded sheet 
 on the table with the gold piece as a weight, and, turn 
 ing the catch, lifted the window softly, inch by 
 inch, and recommenced his journey into the world. 
 
 77 
 
yin 
 
 YOU MUST STAET AFEESH 
 
 This time he did not follow the setting sun, for 
 he had an idea that his pursuers, knowing his bent, 
 would move westward. Also, he thought that the 
 zone of the notices might not be as broad as it was 
 long and he could pass out of it sooner by going 
 toward the north. Here he was in error. His first 
 descent upon a village revealed the reward for him 
 still standing beside that of the reward for Bingo, the 
 slave. 
 
 On the morning of the second day he began to 
 realize that berries are not as sustaining as a mixed 
 diet. He dared not follow the road for fear of dis 
 covery. The sun was hot, his path one never-ending 
 field of stubble. When fatigue and hunger had 
 made his legs wabbly, the sight of a tumble-down 
 shanty, left by the Irish workmen who had built the 
 railroad ten years before, suggested both conceal 
 ment and rest. 
 
 "I ll sleep till after dark, 59 he told himself, "and 
 then I ll travel all night, and in the morning yes, 
 I ll risk it." 
 
 By risking it he meant that he would ask to split 
 wood or do anything else he could turn his hand to 
 in order to earn his breakfast. The door of the 
 shanty was closed. He began to push it in ; when a 
 great, thick voice from the inside cried: 
 
 78 
 
THE VAGABOND 
 
 "I kill yo 9 ! I kill yo I Sho ? s theh s a Gawd in 
 hebben, I kill yo ? ? fore I go back Souf !" 
 
 "Have a look at a thing before you get scared 
 about it," Billy warned himself. 
 
 He desisted in his effort only to satisfy his curi* 
 osity. He crept to the window and peeked in to see 
 a Titanic negro, the blurry whites of his eyes show 
 ing wide, with a club uplifted, ready to lay on the 
 head of the intruder. 
 
 "You needn t fear me," Billy said. "I m not go 
 ing to take you South." 
 
 At sight of the boy, Bingo dropped his club, open 
 ing his mouth as wide as his eyes and showing twice 
 as much white. 
 
 "Good Lawd o mercy! It s only a bo-oy, a IT 
 bo-oy! I was sleep dar." He pointed to a quilt in 
 a corner. "I done had a dream. Dey wuz han cuffin 
 me. I jump up an dar wuz somebody at de doah. 
 De dream s comin true, I says. De good Lawd has 
 wawned me. Ise a most out o ? de wilderness now 
 an I done gwine t die an go t de Promise Lan one 
 way or tother." 
 
 Billy began to climb in at the window. Already 
 he regarded Bingo as only a big child to be humored. 
 
 "Where is the Promised Land?" he asked. 
 
 "Up in Can dy. All niggahs is free dyah an ? kin 
 hoi up deir haids same as white men." 
 
 "Well, you want to hold up your head anyway, if 
 you expect to escape," observed Billy, sagely. 
 
 Hunted himself, his young heart went out to the 
 hunted. He would not then have joined in the chase 
 of a dog. The sight of this poor, speaking piece of 
 property in his own form ever remained with him. 
 
 79 
 
THE VAGABOND 
 
 Bingo explained that he was kept in hiding here 
 until his allies in breaking the law were ready to send 
 him on to the next station, where other abolitionists 
 would do as much for him. 
 
 "Dey s monst ous good to me, dey is. Ham V 
 eggs fer brekfus an pie an pie!" 
 
 "Pie for breakfast?" asked Billy. 
 
 "No ! Lawd, no ! Co se not. Dis yearth ain heb- 
 ben nohow. Pie fer dinnah two pieces! Ef yo ia 
 a runaway yo go t dat white house ober dyah. Dey s 
 white folks, dey is, brack man s white folks." 
 
 "Who are they ?" Billy asked. 
 
 "Dey is Missy E lissy, des Missy E lissy. My! 
 She s des mos ? monst-ous prim ! Yes, suh, ef yo s a 
 runaway yo go see her." 
 
 "I m going to have a look at her, Bingo." Billy 
 held out a palm whose blisters from the freight car 
 coupling were turning to callous. 
 
 "Yo , a white boy wid a niggah! Lawd! Ise 
 near de Promise Lan fo sho." 
 
 He enveloped Billy s hand in his great fingers. 
 Abolitionists had fed him, secreted him at the risk of 
 prosecution, petted him as if he were a precious sou 
 venir, and yet this boy, with genuine camaraderie, 
 was the first to offer him the grasp of social equality. 
 
 Blinking through the foliage, Billy could see from 
 the shanty itself pieces of white pillar and white wall 
 of the place that befriended runaways. Unobserved 
 he approached until he was under the cover of a large 
 evergreen-tree in the yard. Erom this vantage-point 
 he studied the situation. 
 
 Here was a house set back in seclusion from the 
 road, yet as different from the one he had known, as 
 
 80 
 
THE VAGABOND 
 
 new from rusty tin. On the porch sat a personage 
 in keeping with her surroundings. From the high 
 shell-comb in her back hair to her kid slippers, there 
 were no flapping ends in the neat make-up of Miss 
 Felicia, only daughter of the late Senator Hope. Her 
 years were thirty, perhaps, her primness making 
 them indefinite at first glance. She was crocheting 
 a strip of lace in the manner of one who must do 
 so many inches in a certain length of time or lose 
 caste forever. The ensemble of house and lady, and 
 especially the mechanical and unceasing course of 
 the long needle in and out, convincing as it was of a 
 well-stocked larder, at the same time suggested noth 
 ing less than sympathy with boys who did not remain 
 strictly under the wing of their guardians. 
 
 His discretion was dulling his hunger; he was 
 about to depart when the lady looked up from her 
 work and smiled, not in the least merrily, not beam 
 ingly, but quietly, sedately, in the manner of one 
 who contemplates a good deed. At least, she was in 
 favorable humor. Surely, living in this big house 
 well on the outskirts of a village, she had not read 
 that notice, said his stomach, throwing the balance in 
 its favor. 
 
 The next moment, hat in hand, Billy stood before 
 Felicia Hope. 
 
 "Could I split some wood for you for a piece of 
 bread and butter?" he asked. 
 
 "Nobody willing to work ever came to the Hope 
 house and went away hungry," she replied. "You re 
 pretty young to be tramping. Where are you from, 
 the village?" 
 
 The last word was spoken mechanically. Billy saw 
 81 
 
THE VAGABOND 
 
 that she was looking him over from head to foot. He 
 could fairly hear her thinking: "Freckled face, lin 
 sey-woolsey pants, gingham shirt, blue eyes, and head 
 held high. 7 
 
 "I m not as hungry as I thought/ he said, hastily. 
 It was the only excuse that came to his mind. "I ll 
 hurry along." 
 
 He turned abruptly on his heel, only to see a figure 
 in beaver hat and black coat entering the gate a 
 figure that he instantly recognized as his uncle. He 
 was going to dodge behind the trees and make a run 
 for it, but realized the futility of the effort. If the 
 Judge could not overtake him, he might find some 
 one less portly who would. It was an awful fate 
 to be trapped between that severe, high shell-comb 
 and that severe high hat. JSTever had he so wished 
 for man s estate and especially a man s legs. The 
 Judge laid his hand on his nephew s head, which 
 "was precisely what his nephew had feared that he 
 would do. 
 
 "Well, well!" he said. "You got tired of running 
 away and thought Belniore wasn t such a bad place 
 after all, my prodigal?" 
 
 Prodigal ! Billy had always hated that story. He 
 regarded the prodigal as the rankest, most worthless 
 "quitter" on record. 
 
 "I didn t know this was Belmore," he stormed 
 back. "I came north to get away from those notices. 
 You let me go and I ll show you, sir. You take down 
 those notices and you ll just have to come to the Rocky 
 Mountains if you want to see me. I ll leave it to 
 that lady. All I asked was to split wood for some 
 thing to eat." 
 
 82 
 
THE VAGABOND 
 
 "You have some spirit, I see," the Judge observed, 
 with a smile of satisfaction which Billy completely 
 misinterpreted. It set him into a trembling rage. 
 He felt as if he were a mouse being played with by 
 a cat. 
 
 "Do you have to keep your hand on my head just 
 to show how big you are and how small I am?" he 
 demanded. 
 
 "Oh, no, William," the Judge replied. "But I m 
 not going to let you run away again not just yet. 
 Your persistence is really very creditable. Suppose 
 we have something to eat and then we ll talk the 
 matter over." 
 
 By this time Billy saw the futility of anger and 
 was once more John Smith s son going after the 
 weekly paper. 
 
 83 
 
IX 
 
 FEARING NOT A JUDICIAL MIEN 
 
 The Judge s calls on Miss Felicia were of too long 
 standing to be a topic of discussion. They had be 
 come merely a matter of opinion in the county seat 
 whence Plaronville sent her squabbling lawyers, her 
 jurors, and her criminals. "She ll have him yet," 
 said the Democrats. "Never/ said the Whigs. 
 
 His attentions had begun when her father was 
 still the ruler of the Whig stronghold of the State, 
 and he was a struggling young lawyer of unflagging 
 Democratic principles. Far from allowing public 
 knowledge of the failure of his petitions to the 
 throne to discourage him, he continued them with 
 the gentle persistence of an equable and confident 
 nature. Incidentally, he was Miss Felicia s attorney. 
 She asked his advice in the management of the estate 
 that the Senator had left her; pretended to believe 
 it quite unsound, and usually followed it. 
 
 She owed his call on this occasion to the poor, 
 stupid fifteen hundred dollars worth of property lying 
 on a quilt in a shanty. Everyone knew of the lady s 
 strong Abolition sentiments; no one suspected that 
 His Honor, who had been elected by Democratic 
 votes, was assistant keeper of a station of the under 
 ground route that sent slaves to Canada. After every 
 rescue he told her that he he, a judge would never 
 consent to break a statute again, however inhuman 
 
 84 
 
THE VAGABOND 
 
 it was. She replied, with precise choice of language, 
 that she was far from need of assistance from one 
 who was so timid. Nevertheless, when word came 
 from the receiving bureau in Maryland, she had only 
 to despatch a note to the court-house for her recruit 
 to enter into the work with a youthful enjoyment 
 and cunning which his legal sense strongly con 
 demned. 
 
 Besides the slave, these two good people now had 
 the boy to consider. Miss Felicia first introduced 
 him, sternly, to forestall the resistance that she ex 
 pected, to a big basin of water. He surprised her 
 by thrusting his head into it with a great splatter. 
 Cleanliness was inherent in him. While he sat up 
 at the table eating what a colored maid whose free 
 dom had been bought put before him, the Judge 
 and Miss Felicia were discussing both runaways. It 
 was agreed that the boy should remain with her for 
 the present. She insisted permanently, and the 
 Judge replied that their first object must be to dis 
 abuse him of his vagaries and make him happy and 
 contented. 
 
 "You ll be comfortable here to-night," he told 
 the Vagabond on leaving the house. a To-morrow, 
 when you are rested, I ll show you Belmore and we ll 
 have a talk." 
 
 "Yes, sir," was the reply an inscrutable "yes, 
 sir," that made the Judge pucker his brows. 
 
 The Vagabond had put himself on record as in 
 tending to run away and to keep on running away 
 until he was pursued no farther. He even received 
 encouragement to stick to his threat from the colored 
 maid who put him to bed. 
 
 85 
 
THE VAGABOND 
 
 "I gets so lonesome I feels like runnin s myse f, 
 Dis hyah place des so prim ! Sakes alive ! I gets dat 
 humsick fo Virginny I d like to hyah ole massa say, 
 G long, yo niggahs! Who tol yo stick yo brack 
 faces in hyah ? Miss F lissy des de goodest woman 
 in de worP, Lawd ? yes! She s too good! Yes, 
 suh-h-h!" 
 
 The aspect of the room itself gave point to the 
 maid s words. The counterpane was too sugges 
 tively stiff; the blue and white china too blue and too 
 white; and the cat marked on the splasher over the 
 wash-stand too rigid and watchful. The pressing 
 sense of exact and angular proportions helped the 
 Vagabond in the trying ordeal of keeping awake until 
 midnight. 
 
 In order to descend from the roof of Miss Felicia s 
 porch he had to leap from it upon the limb of a tree, 
 the most difficult feat in gymnastics of this sort that 
 he had yet performed in his struggle for liberty. Yet 
 he was quite confident that it was nothing for a moun 
 tain-climber in the bright moonlight. As he crept 
 to the edge of the roof and peeked over, who should 
 he see on the gravel-walk at this hour but Miss Felicia 
 herself, with a woollen shawl thrown over her head 
 and shoulders. He drew back for a bad minute. 
 Peeking over again, he saw that she had not seen 
 him. No more had John, the coachman, who came 
 leading a horse and covered buggy from the barn at 
 noiseless pace; no more had the Judge, who came 
 walking across the fields. It was different with 
 the keen, savage glance of his hunted black com 
 panion. 
 
 "Who dat ar dat ar on yo po ch?" he asked. 
 86 
 
THE VAGABOND 
 
 The Judge looked, understood, and bade the negro 
 be quiet. When the buggy, Bingo s pitiful gratitude 
 dying on the night air, passed on down the road, the 
 Judge whispered something to Miss Felicia before 
 he called out in his great, far-carrying voice: 
 
 "William, do you prefer a roof to a bed?" 
 
 It was not easy to take the Vagabond unawares. 
 
 "No, sir," he replied. "I was going to run away 
 and you ve caught me." 
 
 He had a scheme back of his reply, but the Judge 
 checkmated it. 
 
 "Now, William," he said, kindly, "we can lock you 
 in. If that isn t enough, one of us can wait here all 
 night to break your fall when you come down. Will 
 iam, I want you to promise me on your word of honor 
 that you won t run away to-night." 
 
 "Yes, sir; I give my word." 
 
 And so, in humiliation, he crept back to bed. 
 
 "I am afraid that is a much bigger task than the 
 one we have just finished," said Miss Felicia, delighted 
 over increased opportunities for doing good. Had the 
 world been already reformed she would have been 
 rather miserable. 
 
 "Possibly not. I like his spirit. He has my 
 father s chin and a good forehead besides. I think 
 when we have had our conference I shall bring him 
 around." The foremost orator of the county was 
 bound to have confidence in his powers. "He has 
 come to me like a gift from Heaven. I mean to rear 
 him as if he were my own, and in my later years to 
 live over my youth in him." 
 
 "That is all very well," said the practical woman. 
 "What he most needs now, John" she used this word 
 
 87 
 
THE VAGABOND 
 
 only when she wanted to gain a point and he always 
 thrilled with it a is a woman s care; not a hired wom 
 an s! And a hired woman is the best you can pro 
 vide. You must let him remain here with me until 
 he is old enough to go to Andover." 
 
 The moonlight played on Miss Felicia s face. De 
 spite her scorn for beauty as a superfluity, no one 
 could deny that she was at least fine looking. Her 
 earnest words added to her charm, under whose spell 
 the Judge forgot all past rebuffs; forgot even the boy, 
 already sound asleep, except as a means to an end. As 
 an orator he must, perforce, approach the main argu 
 ment with an exordium: 
 
 "You have shown the way," he said, putting one 
 foot a little in front of the other and thrusting three 
 fingers between the top buttons of his waistcoat. 
 "The boy does need the soft, directing hand and the 
 gentle sympathy of a mother; he does need, as well, 
 the firm hand, the advice, the fellowship of a father. 
 The one is as much the corollary of the other as the 
 moon and the sun, the night and the day." 
 
 "Which is the day?" asked Miss Felicia, her lips 
 twitching ever so little with amusement. 
 
 But the Judge was used to interruptions on the 
 stump. 
 
 "The mother! She is the summer; the father the 
 winter. Without the one, the boy will be all night; 
 without the other, all day. Felicia, a young life has 
 been intrusted to us. A boy of overflowing spirit, who 
 may be of great account in the world, must receive 
 the stamp of a character worthy of his promise. Why 
 should we be merely his guardians? Why " 
 
 "It is getting chilly. Good-night, John," remarked 
 88 
 
THE VAGABOND 
 Felicia. "We ll see how the boy behaves to-mor 
 
 row." 
 
 Yes, quite chilly," said the Judge to himself, as 
 he walked away; "freezing, in fact. I wonder if there 
 will never be a thaw. My God! I worship that 
 woman!" 
 
 If she only could have heard this heartfelt outburst 
 without any attempt at oratory! 
 
 89 
 
BUT MEETING LOGIO WITH FAITH 
 
 The Judge had resolved on playing a great part the 
 next day. He appeared early at the Hope house, with 
 the serene consciousness that he had his exordium, his 
 argument, his peroration, and his stage effects for res 
 cuing the Vagabond from his fancies well in hand. 
 
 "Now to see the village and the court," he said, 
 with heavy cheerfulness. 
 
 "Yes, sir," was the laconic answer. 
 
 So the uncle took the nephew s hand in his and 
 started along the walk, while Miss Felicia, who 
 watched them from the steps, was convinced that she 
 knew a great deal better than John how to deal with 
 that boy. From the road they could see through the 
 avenue of trees to the main street, with its double row 
 of frame houses. When the railroad came, Belrnore 
 told itself that it was going to grow. Finding that it 
 did not, it fell back into its old way, with a contempt 
 for any other, leaving such frivolities as progress to 
 Plaronville, where the Judge himself would have 
 gone but for his election to the bench and the presence 
 of Miss Felicia, an unalterable Belmorean. 
 
 "I ran away from the same old farm that you did 
 when I was twelve," the Judge began, unctuously. 
 
 "And is this as far as you got?" the Vagabond 
 asked. 
 
 90 
 
THE VAGABOND 
 
 The Judge was used to interruptions in his argu 
 ment but not in his exordium, and he frowned and 
 was silent long enough to give the Vagabond courage 
 to put in a word about a matter that was most oppres 
 sive. 
 
 "I d just as soon you wouldn t hold my hand in 
 that way," he said. "I can walk alone." 
 
 "Oh!" was the most the uncle could say. 
 
 "Thank you!" replied the nephew, heartily. 
 
 Thus one of the Judge s favorite theories of prac 
 tice was upset. He had been used to winning votes 
 for his party by putting his hand on the head of the 
 suffragist s son and saying, "Well, my little man!" 
 The Vagabond had the objection to being handled of 
 most boys, born for the open, when they reach the 
 age of ten. 
 
 In anticipation, the Judge had enjoyed the effect 
 of entering the square and announcing that the pre 
 possessing boy whose hand he held was his nephew 
 and thenceforth his ward. The absence of contact de 
 stroyed the romance of such a proceeding. Without 
 stopping, he went up the court-house steps, bowing 
 in reply to the volley of "Mornin , Jedge!" that greet 
 ed him from lawyers and jurymen who awaited his ar 
 rival. Throughout the hearing of a line fence dis 
 pute the Judge s audience was Billy, whom he had 
 placed in a commanding seat. When he made a point 
 of law overruling a lawyer s objections, he looked at 
 Billy as he would at a campaign audience for applause. 
 Afterward, when they were back in his office over the 
 leading "general store," and had eaten a luncheon 
 brought from the hotel across the street, the uncle 
 proceeded again to his exordium. 
 
 91 
 
THE VAGABOND 
 
 "How would you like to be a judge and sit up on 
 the bench as I did this morning?" he asked. 
 
 "If you please, I would not like to at all. I would 
 much rather climb a mountain," was the reply. "All 
 the time that talk was going on I was listening to the 
 birds." 
 
 "All that talk!" repeated the Judge. In the whole 
 of his career he had never met a controversialist who 
 so naturally and buoyantly and indubitably ran away 
 with all the premises. 
 
 "Yes, sir. I can t help it. All that talk in that 
 stuffy place just about that fence and a wise, big, 
 learned man as you are wasting his time over it and 
 the lawyers wasting their time and the jury wasting 
 theirs, when there s gold in the Rocky Mountains and 
 so much room in the world!" 
 
 The Judge concluded that the only thing was to go 
 on, without asking questions that would bring inter 
 ruptions. He was eloquent as eloquence went in those 
 days. He described his own struggles; how he had 
 worked his way through the academy; how he had 
 read law on two hundred a year; and how honors had 
 come to him. Finally, he pointed to the leather- 
 backed rows on the four walls that made up the finest 
 law library in the county and then to the works of his 
 tory and biography in his bedroom adjoining. 
 
 "Everyone is a living being to me," he said. 
 "Here at my hand I have all that the great codifiers 
 of all ages have given to the world. I am never able 
 to quote from one without a little feeling of pride." 
 
 "As if you had put another mile behind you, and 
 and the mountain was a little rearer," suggested 
 Billy. 
 
 92 
 
THE VAGABOND 
 
 "Yes, and I am not a day older without being a 
 day wiser. That is the beauty of it. Knowledge is 
 like a crown of jewels of unending increase, the love 
 of its accumulation giving to old age the zest of youth. 
 All these books I want to be yours. All my expe 
 rience I want to be yours. You shall go farther than 
 the academy to the university! I want you to live 
 with me and be my my son." 
 
 But what authority was torts on gold mines or on 
 shinning around the edge of a precipice? On the 
 background of bulky volumes in a room unornamented 
 except for steel engravings of Thomas Jefferson and 
 John Marshall, all stiff and serene and dry wrinkles, 
 the Judge was more ominous than ever. Billy spoke 
 with the feeling of a boy who has escaped from one 
 library to fall into another. 
 
 "I know you re a big, very big man and a very 
 go-ood man," he said. "And Miss Felicia is also 
 very go-ood. But I don t want to be big and sit on a 
 bench. I want to travel and travel and climb a moun 
 tain and I ll run away. I give you fair warning, 
 I ll run away." 
 
 The best the Judge could do was to shake his head 
 and take his charge back to Miss Felicia. There he 
 left him on the porch, while he went in to confer with 
 the lady. What could be more aggravating to a boy 
 than to know that he was the subject of such a discus 
 sion? He looked out at the road and wished that 
 night with its chance of escape was already at hand. 
 When his mentors returned, the Judge was graver 
 than before and Miss Felicia determined and evident 
 ly inspired by a new responsibility. What their deci 
 sion was will never be known, for at that minute Cap- 
 
 93 
 
THE VAGABOND 
 
 tain Robert Herrick, U. S. A., and Tim Booker en 
 tered the gate. 
 
 "Now you are all here!" cried the Vagabond, in 
 tears of rage, "all except Jim Hawkins! Why didn t 
 you bring him?" 
 
 "Don t say that, Billy!" the Captain said, so 
 pathetically that Billy instantly regretted his out 
 burst. 
 
 "With a deep bow from the hips in recognition of a 
 lady s presence, the old soldier told the whole story 
 of their connection with the boy, Tim standing awk 
 wardly by. 
 
 "We ve hunted him high and low, sir," said the 
 Captain, "and there s only one word for it we feel 
 mean, sir. You read this and you ll understand my 
 point, sir." 
 
 He proffered Billy s farewell letter. WTien the 
 Judge opened it the drawings fell out and the Cap 
 tain explained them. 
 
 "You drew these!" the Judge exclaimed, turning 
 to the Vagabond, who brightened instantly. 
 
 "Yes, sir. I like that. My father wouldn t let me 
 draw. But when I get away where the mountain is 
 I m going to draw all I want to." 
 
 The Judge read the letter through slowly. He 
 found it a good legal document, and tapped the paper 
 with his finger when he came to the sentence, "I don t 
 see what claim the Judge has got on me; he never 
 came to our place before my father died." He was 
 amazed at the composition for a ten-year-old boy. 
 
 "And I want to say to you, sir, for myself and Mr. 
 Booker, that we want that boy ; and if you ll give him 
 
 up he shall go with us, sir, and " 
 
 94 
 
THE VAGABOND 
 
 "To California! Out among savages and swearing 
 miners and wild animals ! Do you want to make him 
 a heathen?" gasped Miss Felicia, springing to her 
 feet. 
 
 Captain Herrick also rose from his seat. At 
 that moment he was in a mood to have kid 
 napped the Vagabond. His indignation only made 
 him the more punctilious in bowing from the hips. 
 
 "Miss," he said, "no boy s morals will suffer 
 in the company of an officer of the United States 
 army!" 
 
 Miss Felicia, who knew nothing so well as the dan 
 ger of her own temper, for fear that she would say 
 something that she should be sorry for, dashed into 
 the parlor, where she began nervously dusting furni 
 ture that was speckless. The Vagabond slipped down 
 from his chair and went to the Captain s side and 
 looked up at him, his lips parting and his blue eyes 
 radiating his affection. His uncle observed the move 
 ment sadly. 
 
 "Have you had Latin? Anything besides Eng 
 lish?" 
 
 The Vagabond named his books of Caesar and Cic 
 ero as if they were so many demerits. 
 
 "You re ready for the academy now. You must 
 have learned easily." 
 
 "I don t know, sir. I just learned, to keep peace* 
 It seems to me I ve learned enough to last me for 
 ever! I want some time for the things I like. Can t 
 you see, sir, I don t like what you do?" he pleaded. 
 
 The Judge made no reply to this, but began walk 
 ing up and down the length of the porch, his head 
 bowed and his hands behind him. In puzzled silence 
 
 95 
 
THE VAGABOND 
 
 the Captain and Tim watched his pacing, which 
 he ended by passing into the drawing-room to Fe 
 licia. 
 
 "I have decided to let him go," he said. "I have 
 no right to keep him." 
 
 "Have you lost your mind, John? Right! Right! 
 What do you mean?" she cried. 
 
 "I mean that to put him in stays may ruin him 
 yes, it may turn his energy into bad channels." 
 
 "You shirk your duty. Your duty is to discipline 
 him, to rear him properly. You shirk, John. I say 
 it to your face." 
 
 "There are many differences of opinions and tastes 
 in the world." Here the lawyer was completely sub 
 merged, the scholar wholly triumphant. "Our coun 
 try is suffering from mistaken efforts at discipline at 
 this moment. In South Carolina they think that 
 Massachusetts people are property stealers and witch- 
 burners. You know what we think of them. Disci 
 pline! It s forcing people to do what you want them 
 to do. I would not have allowed my father to prevent 
 my studying law, and this boy is entitled to follow his 
 bent as much as I." 
 
 He was almost as surprised as she to find himself 
 adamant against her stormings and pleadings. 
 
 "I didn t think you had so much backbone!" she 
 cried at last, almost in admiration, and ran upstairs 
 to her room to yes, to cry in vexation. 
 
 The Judge returned to the group, which was still 
 as silent as culprits in court awaiting his decision. 
 
 "You were logical," he said to Billy. "When I 
 neglected you for so many years I have no right to 
 your affection now " 
 
THE VAGABOND 
 
 Then lie turned away from the sight of his nephew 
 burying his face against Captain Herrick s neck in 
 the first faint appreciation of his heritage of happi 
 ness; for the Judge had grown fond of that freckle- 
 faced boy. 
 
XI 
 
 THAT WINS YOU A PASSAGE. 
 
 "Have you any money to invest?" the Captain 
 asked Tim Booker, soon after the three were back at 
 the Post. 
 
 "I guess when my fare s paid," said Tim, "the 
 Natty Nancy won t be overloaded with my savings on 
 sixteen dollars a month." 
 
 "Well, sir," the Captain rejoined, "just you risk it 
 along with what I ve got to spare. I ll tell you how 
 and why, sir. To be explanatory, sir, and to make 
 myself clear with a long story when a short story 
 won t do, I ve seen two thousand men in hospital in 
 Mexico, sir. Yes, sir, when the volunteers Ameri 
 can volunteers, sir, as fine timber as ever grew and a 
 little finer, without any intention of tunin up the old 
 eagle when the volunteers went to Mexico what d 
 they do? When they saw anything good to eat they 
 et it; when they saw anything fit to drink they drank 
 it; and when they got sick they said their general was 
 no good and wrote straight home to their Congress 
 men to have him dismissed. One of my men came 
 growlin to me at Jalapa and says : That comp ny of 
 Ohioans over there s eatin all the fruit they want to. 
 Are they? says I. You go ask em how many 
 they ve got on their sick-list. He came back and says: 
 Thirty per cent/ Very good, says I, we ve got five 
 
 98 
 
THE VAGABOND 
 
 per cent. We ll draw lots for the other twenty-five 
 and we ll leave em behind right off to fill up on 
 orcottas and such, and we ll know just where we 
 stand. 
 
 "Ninety per cent, of my men, barring killed and 
 wounded, stormed the heights of Chapultepec and 
 twenty per cent, of that Ohio regiment; and when I 
 seen how that little band of volunteers handled their 
 bayonets, as unconcerned as if they was soup spoons, 
 sir, and they were worried lest they shouldn t get their 
 share, it near broke my heart to think what the others 
 was missin . Yes, sir, I learned my lesson in the ranks 
 and didn t forget it, either. 
 
 "Well, sir, if the soldier s a baby, what s the miner 
 without any discipline? Words fail me, sir, to de 
 scribe his infantile follies, on the one hand, or his 
 magnificent possibilities when he s properly weaned 
 and brought up, on the other. He ll eat what he sees ; 
 he ll lie down all sweat and let the cold wind blow on 
 his back and say afterward it ain t no white man s 
 country. And what will he cry for ? Colic medicine, 
 sir, colic medicine I 
 
 "That s the first thing. And the second, sir! 
 What is it an American most craves when he is far 
 away from home? I ve seen the time, sir, when a 
 piece for every man would have restored the esprit de 
 corps of a regiment. Mother s pies ! Mother s apple- 
 pies! That s what they ll cry for when they re well 
 enough not to want the medicine. And there you 
 have the combination that will make a customer of 
 every man on the Pacific coast apple-pie and belly 
 ache medicine! Do you agree, sir?" 
 
 "It s a good thing you turned soldier," said Tim; 
 99. 
 
THE VAGABOND 
 
 "a good thing for John Jacob Astor. "We ll take our 
 mine with us. But you ll have to post me up on the 
 medicine. About the only colic medicine I knew 
 when I was a boy was to roll on a barrel* That helped 
 a lot, especially if your shirt worked up under your 
 arms and there was plenty of slivers." 
 
 "The barrels are too bulky to carry, sir, and the lit 
 tle bottles won t take long at a "New York drug store." 
 
 Tim, overjoyed at playing a part, set about canvas 
 sing the country-side for dried apples, and the Captain 
 turned to the final preparations for the departure of 
 his company, a matter easy to him from his long ex 
 perience in army transport, and of never-failing in 
 terest to the Vagabond, who was initiated into the art 
 that conceals art in this as in every other occupation. 
 
 "You do know one thing so well," he told "Father 
 Bob," as he now called the Captain by the Captain s 
 request. "It s just what I want to do. I want to 
 know how to take gold out of mines* That will be my 
 work. For fun I want to climb mountains and draw 
 pictures. Oh, Captain, I m so happy, so happy! In 
 the morning I rub my eyes to make sure I m not 
 dreaming it. At night the last thing I think is, I 
 certainly am going around the Horn on the Natty 
 Nancy, Captain Jabez Goodrich. " He always added 
 the skipper s name, which seemed an essential part 
 of the rigmarole. 
 
 When the three partners reached New York and 
 they were making their final purchases, his consisted 
 solely of a book on mining and metallurgy and plenty 
 of paper and pencils. His thoughts were all for the 
 ship and not ashore. Once aboard he preferred to 
 Btay 
 
 100 
 
THE 
 
 "It s too close and too thick," lie said, nodding 
 toward the city. "I d like to climb the Palisades, 
 though, if I wasn t so sure that I would see much big 
 ger precipices. Now I m on the ship I ll stick. I 
 can t help feeling it s almost too good to be true. 
 We re really going, aren t we? Around the Horn to 
 the Rocky Mountains?" 
 
 He was sure he had never seen anything so clean as 
 the Natty Nancy. He told Captain Goodrich so, and 
 then and there the Captain became his friend. 
 
 The Captain was worthy of his vessel. For forty- 
 five years his keen eye had scanned the seas of the 
 world. In the story of his life you might read that of 
 the wooden-walled marine, which was the glory of a 
 nation s youth, already approaching its decline. 
 Time had not made his temper softer, his sight duller 
 to spots on the deck, or diminished his energy. It was 
 more interesting to sup in the Captain s cabin as his 
 guest than at a hotel, and when the Vagabond 
 crawled into the little bunk that was to be his for the 
 voyage his last thoughts were: 
 
 "It looks as if it really was not too good to be true. 
 If anything is going to happen, it must happen before 
 to-morrow noon. Oh, I wish it was to-morrow noon, 
 now then I d be certain!" 
 
 Ten was the hour set for sailing, and by eight the 
 soldiers were on board, the last of the cargo was se 
 cure, and everything waited on the Captain, who was 
 ashore for his "papers" and a last word with the own 
 ers in dingy offices looking out on the field of masts 
 which they sent forth to fetch and take the products 
 of all lands. The Vagabond was silent and trembling 
 with the terrible possibilities that his imagination sug- 
 
 101 
 
THE VAGABOND 
 
 gested. It was too good, too good ! Something would 
 happen at the last moment! He watched every ap 
 proaching figure on the pier with the fear that it might 
 conceal some power which would suddenly turn his 
 happiness into grief. So he was the first to see the 
 Judge, whose measured walk and old-fashioned garb 
 he recognized instantly. 
 
 "He s changed his mind/ he thought He s not 
 going to let me stay." 
 
 His first impulse was to hide; his next to fly to 
 Father Bob, who was forward with Tim. But he un 
 derstood the Captain s principles well enough to know 
 that he would not take him against his uncle s will. 
 So he met the Judge at the gangway defiantly, full 
 armed with his rights and the boyish arguments he 
 proposed to use. He whistled and forced his lips 
 apart in a smile, and the Judge was smiling, too, quite 
 naturally. 
 
 "Well, Billy, how do you like it by now?" he 
 asked. 
 
 Billy! The Judge had always called him "William 
 before and he hated William. 
 
 "I love it!" he replied. "Have you come to take 
 me away? Cause if you have " 
 
 The Judge laughed boisterously. The Vagabond 
 had not known him to laugh aloud before and his sus 
 picions ran higher. 
 
 "Did you think I d go back on my word ?" 
 
 "I didn t think. I was just scared you might." 
 
 The Judge laughed again, but not so heartily; for 
 underneath his amusement he was asking himself why 
 he should be regarded as an ogre. 
 
 "Well, you needn t worry any further on that 
 102 
 
THE VAGABOND 
 
 score. I hope you do not mind my coming to say 
 good-by and to bring you this parcel? Felicia 
 has sent you a Bible, and I ve added a little sketch 
 book. I thought maybe you d like to make some pic 
 tures of people you see and send them back to me. I 
 believe it will be little trouble for you to make 
 them and they will give me a great deal of pleas 
 
 ure." 
 
 The element of constraint in the Judge s speech 
 was due to his increased conviction that he was the 
 boy s debtor for a liberalizing influence as the result 
 of their brief association, and, moreover, to the injus 
 tice he had done him by never once having offered tho 
 olive branch to his dead brother. 
 
 "Thank you, sir. I will fill it full of soldiers and 
 mountains and everything I see." 
 
 "And I have put in a few plays of Shakespeare. 
 You ought to like Prince Hal and The Tempest/ I 
 should say. Julius Caesar is my favorite, of course. 
 The Bible and Shakespeare they are a liberal edu 
 cation!" 
 
 This was the limit of the Judge s advice. He re 
 mained chatting in his deliberate way until it was 
 time to cast off; and the last that those aboard, as the 
 Natty Nancy, all trim and taut and fresh as a young 
 housewife going to market, passed out into the river, 
 saw of him was his fluttering handkerchief waved in 
 farewell. In stately ease the good ship rounded Castle 
 William, which alone with Castle Garden, Trinity 
 and St. Paul s, of the surroundings of New York 
 Bay of 49, remain the same, and on through the Nar 
 rows, where she spread her wings for her long sail. 
 The Vagabond was awed and silent until the dim line 
 
 103 
 
THE VAGABOND 
 
 of the Highlands melted into the clouds. Then he 
 seized Tim s hand in his and cried: 
 
 "It isn t too good! It s true! It s true! Nothing 
 can stop us now, can there?" 
 
 His next act was to unpack the Judge s parcel and 
 begin work on that sketch-book. Before he was a week 
 out he had it full, all except two leaves. These he re 
 served for the letter which he was to mail at Rio 
 Janeiro a letter which was a great credit to him, 
 we ll agree. He began it with "Dear Uncle" instead 
 of "Dear Judge": 
 
 "I did not like you a bit at first. Now I do like you 
 a lot and I write to tell you so just as soon as I know it 
 myself. You tried to be very good all the time, but 
 you see you did not understand how to be good to me. 
 I am such a queer little cuss, as Jim Hawkins said. I 
 am afraid I was dreadfully sassy to you. Honest, I 
 did not mean to be. I only just said what I thought. 
 I can t do any other way, so please forgive me. I 
 mean, you did not understand until you let me go. 
 Oh, I cannot find any w r ords big enough to thank you. 
 I thank you like a little bird would when you let him 
 out of his cage to fly away. His keeper may be a 
 very, very good man and feed that little bird very well 
 and teach him tricks ; but that little bird would rather 
 be in the air and free and fly as high as it wants to and 
 get its own worms, which would be all the sweeter, 
 and nestle in the crotch of a limb when it rained, 
 which would be much more comfortable than any 
 house. 
 
 "I hope you will like my pictures. There are a 
 good many of Barney, the boatswain. Barney has 
 
 lOi 
 
THE VAGABOND 
 
 taught me how to splice ropes. He has been on ships 
 all his life and has been on a whaler, too. I don t dare 
 say just how big that whale was that broke two boats 
 all into flinders before he harpooned him in the Sea 
 of Okotsk, because, you see, the length of the whale 
 is never the same. Not that Barney means anything 
 untruthful, only his estimate is different, I guess, 
 every time he tells the story. Barney has a big red 
 nose. The sailors say he got it by drinking too much 
 grog. Barney says he got it by hard work and long 
 hours on the roaring main. There is no doubt but he 
 has done the hard work. I guess, though, if he hadn t 
 done it he would have that red nose just the 
 same. When I asked him what he thought of Robin 
 son Crusoe he said Robinson was a landlubber who 
 did not know the first thing about building boats. I 
 told him the story of The Tempest/ and he said he 
 liked the old man in it because he was such a growler, 
 and by rights he ought to be a sailor. "When I asked 
 Barney if he was not a good deal of a critic, he said 
 of course; what was the object of being a sailor if he 
 was not. He told me a story of a crew once that 
 growled so much their captain told them he would 
 sign them on again at seventeen dollars a month and 
 no growl or fifteen dollars and growl. Barney said 
 they told the old pirate that he could never bribe an 
 American sailor out of his rights, and they would take 
 the fifteen dollars and growl, of course. I guess Bar 
 ney likes to show off before a boy that has never been 
 to sea before. I am willing. 
 
 "I think that if there were no mountain ranges I 
 should like to be a sailor. The sea is a cradle that 
 rocks you to sleep at night, and by day it is always 
 
 105 
 
THE VAGABOND 
 
 moving. When I say that to Tim, though, he just looks 
 at me. Tim said when he threw up his boots that he 
 thought he would feel better if he could throw up the 
 keel of the ship; but he finds that he does not. Father 
 Bob is not sea-sick at all. It makes him very proud to 
 walk up and down before his men with his dinner sit 
 ting as easy on his stomach as the cargo in the hold. 
 If I d been sea-sick, sir/ he said, I would never have 
 shown myself before my men. I would have stayed 
 in my bunk, sir/ I guess, though, that the soldiers 
 were so sick themselves they could not have told 
 whether their Captain was sick or not. The sailors 
 laugh at the soldiers a good deal. Thought you was 
 not going to have anything to do except eat aboard, 
 you loafers! they say; eating is about enough, 
 ain t it? 
 
 "The sailors always have something to do. When 
 there is not something to take up or put down, there 
 is something to mend. To hear them growl about how 
 hard they had to work you would think they were go 
 ing to quit there and then. When the Captain speaks, 
 though, they fly. At first, I thought the Captain 
 did not have any fun in him. He has, only it is all un 
 derneath. I asked him if he thought that Samson, be 
 ing so big and strong, could have caught those foxes. 
 Didn t the whale swallow Jonah? he said. That was 
 no answer at all, I thought. !N"ext day I asked him 
 again. Didn t the whale swallow Jonah? he said, 
 and dropped his eyelid. 
 
 "We have had all kinds of weather. One day we 
 were becalmed. When anybody talked on board it 
 seemed as if you could hear him clear to the end of 
 the world. It was just as if all the world had wilted. 
 
 106 
 
THE VAGABOND 
 
 We did not move an inch. Would we ever move 
 again? You could look and look at the sea and sky 
 and see no reason why we should. It seemed as if we 
 had been where we were forever. It made me think 
 of the rows of books in your law-office. Nobody was 
 happy except Tim. He said he liked to hear me talk 
 about its being calm forever. Then a little breeze be 
 gan to puff out the sails, and in a few hours the ocean 
 that had been asleep woke up and laughed with little 
 waves and everybody was happy even the sailors, 
 who were all tired out growling over no work. The 
 next day it did not seem possible it was the same sea. 
 We had a storm, a real storm like you read about. I 
 won t try to describe that. It was as if the sea was a 
 great angry animal and was trying to shake off our 
 little ship. It takes a storm to make you know what 
 a great man Captain Goodrich is. 
 
 "Tell Miss Felicia that I read her Bible hard. I 
 hope she didn t think me ungrateful. She is very, 
 very good. It would make her happy to hear Captain 
 Herrick read the Bible on Sunday to the soldiers. He 
 reads very well. He says he is no preacher, but there 
 is the book and he has the power of speech, and there 
 is no chaplain. 
 
 a We are all so well that I nearly forgot to mention 
 our health. I am so well I would not mind if it 
 stormed all the time. My appetite! Why, it s too 
 big for my stomach. I have it just the same, no 
 matter how full I am. Father Bob says that next 
 time he takes a ten-year-old boy far he is going to bal 
 last him so there will not be quite as much room for 
 food. 
 
 "You have made me the happiest boy in the world 
 107 
 
THE VAGABOND 
 
 by letting me go. And please don t call me William 
 any more. 
 
 "Your Loving Nephew, 
 
 "BILLY. 
 
 "P. S. There is a good deal more about Barney 
 than I thought there was when I come to read this 
 letter through. Only I thought when our talks were 
 so solemn you would like to hear about Barney, and I 
 think Barney a good man and also funny. Besides, 
 there is nothing sad aboard the Natty Nancy except 
 Tim, and I do wish Tim was not sea-sick." 
 
 It was, indeed, not the smooth days with the long 
 swell, but the rough ones that were the Vagabond s 
 delight. Then he must have his head above the deck, 
 matting his sandy hair with salt while he tossed the 
 mop back in glee as the spray shot over the deck. 
 Once when the angry short seas slapped the Natty 
 Nancy, who shuddered with the blow and then slapped 
 them back defiantly, he was missed from the compan 
 ion-way just after a green ridge had swept the deck. 
 Everyone, even the sea-sick Tim, rushed from below. 
 Barney pressed them back as he pointed forward. 
 There, in the bow, protected by the rail, lay the Vaga 
 bond, holding fast to the anchor. After the wave had 
 broken against the sturdy Maine oak and passed on in 
 tumult and fury, up came the sandy head to peep over 
 at the abyss which it left, while the ship glided down 
 ward softly, as if judging in a moment of calm the 
 might of another approaching monster. Barney went 
 for him, but had to return with orders from "your 
 superior, Captain Herrick," before his request was 
 heeded. 
 
 108 
 
THE VAGABOND 
 
 "Only one thing could be finer, and that s climbing 
 a mountain," said the Vagabond, gayly. "I forgot 
 there was any ship. It was just myself. I was meet 
 ing every one of them and driving them back and wag 
 gling my finger for the others to come on. Oh, it s 
 much better than amo, amas, amat, or tricking po 
 licemen!" 
 
 109 
 
XII 
 
 TO THE BAINBOW S END 
 
 Captain Goodrich s face a down-Easter smile 
 above his salty gray whiskers, not a case of sickness 
 aboard, not a spar missing, the Natty Nancy dropped 
 anchor in the Golden Gate, one hundred and sixty- 
 three days out from New York. In the week follow 
 ing their arrival, our travellers had passed the length 
 of that string of tents and shacks that had been 
 thrown up on the beach in a nightmare of the sleepy 
 Spanish priests, who half expected to awaken some 
 morning and find the strange, insanely energetic 
 beings, with piping oaths and hurry orders, and all 
 their structures vanished from the beach. They had 
 seen frowsy men toss buckskin bags as carelessly upon 
 unplaned counters as if the contents had been brown 
 instead of gleaming yellow ; they had heard the talk 
 of dollars to the pan intermixed with the fate of jack 
 pots and sighs for home ; they had poked their sniff 
 ing noses into the odor of rank tobacco and ranker 
 perspiration in the buildings where the product of 
 great luck at the mines was exchanged overnight for 
 a headache. 
 
 The fulfilment of his prophecy was more gratify 
 ing than his share of the profits to Father Bob when 
 he sold the dried apples and the colic medicine for a 
 sum that needed no exaggeration to seem preposter 
 ous to Eastern credulity. With his share of the profits 
 
THE VAGABOND 
 
 expended in an outfit, Tim set off on a prospecting 
 tour, whose net result was only to enrich his imagina 
 tion. The Vagabond was a vagabond no more. He 
 had agreed to obey the Captain s orders, and obey 
 them he did by being at the Post and thumbing the 
 book on mining and metallurgy, which he already 
 knew by heart, and seeking knowledge of his hobby 
 in every possible way. He was not unhappy, and yet 
 he was not quite happy. He was a boy keeping an 
 agreement in all good faith, and awaiting the prom 
 ised time when he should make a tour with Tim as a 
 vacation, and, in the end, when he was seventeen and 
 of age, might do as he pleased. The Captain often 
 thought of letting him go with Tim altogether, but 
 could not bring himself to the parting. 
 
 Was it the boy s wistfulness and yet philosophical 
 composure under restraint? Was it the inactivity of 
 the Post while the greatest of dramas was being en 
 acted in the field? It matters little for our purpose. 
 It is only essential that, within a year after their ar 
 rival, a board, at his own request, retired the Captain 
 from the army. Therefore, the three again united, 
 the old soldier (an expert in war, a baby in civil af 
 fairs), the exaggerative, great-hearted Tim, and a 
 happy boy of parts set forth to encounter the wind 
 mills in the year A.D. 1850. But the Vagabond was 
 not yet to climb a high mountain and hunt for gold 
 on his own account. He must be content to look at 
 the Sierras in the distance and follow the creek beds 
 whose windings were the courses of the placer hunter s 
 fortune. 
 
 An observing miner expressed a salient truth of the 
 hour when he said that the ole sojer had the best gol- 
 
 111 
 
THE VAGABOND 
 
 darned outfit he d ever seen, but that didn t mean he d 
 have any better luck than any other goldarned galoot. 
 "Within that same six months that the Captain and 
 Tim climbed over divides and panned creek sands to a 
 total of $121.32, more than one plain "cuss," who 
 had started without a week s rations in sight, pro 
 ceeded, with a swagger and bulging pockets, dropping 
 wise saws by the way, toward Frisco. 
 
 Finally, the Captain found a "lead" in a creek bot 
 tom. His project for working it required the exten 
 sion of his partnership to include twenty men who 
 should stake twenty claims in a block, and the build 
 ing of a wing dam to divert the current. In three 
 months the dam was completed. On the first day 
 they took out a thousand dollars. On the second day 
 it broke, and the men swore by a good many things 
 at their luck, and then swore again after the reaction 
 from their despair by a good many things that they 
 would rebuild the dam. 
 
 The close of every day put a notch on the slender 
 stick of each worker s patience that nearly severed it; 
 still they kept on until once more the creek bed was 
 a strand of red mud at their feet. It yielded a few 
 hundred dollars more before the lead stopped as sud 
 denly as a stable footing at the edge of a precipice. 
 They ran up and down panning, like hounds that had 
 lost the scent, and came stock still, with a growl of an 
 ger, before the man who had led them into the enter 
 prise. For a moment it looked as if they might lay 
 hands on him. All his years of service, all his success 
 on the plains, where sheer force of character had 
 brought him out of difficulties, now stood him in stead. 
 He did not think of argument and explanation. He 
 
 112 
 
THE VAGABOND 
 
 met their anger as rigidly as he would a charge. He 
 said that if there were men among them who could 
 take their medicine, let them come to his support. If 
 not, he preferred to face the "pack" alone. One by 
 one they stepped to his side, until a minority went 
 away snarling. 
 
 If his figure was as rigid, his face as calm, as ever, 
 in his heart, for the first time, he felt the contraction 
 of dismay. His last dollar was gone. He began to 
 realize the folly of a man of his years resigning from 
 the army in order to gratify a boy s whim. 
 
 That afternoon Tim took Billy up on the hill-side 
 above the cabins, and together they seated themselves 
 in the shade. 
 
 "There s no worry for myself," Tim said. "When 
 everybody out here wants to make a fortune for him 
 self by day after to-morrow at the latest, it s easy 
 enough for me to make a living by working for wages. 
 But that grand old man! It s on account of us that 
 he s not back there parading his company. And you, 
 Billy! This isn t any place for you, the way I see 
 things now. Why, the Judge meant to send you to 
 college! Whatever possessed us to take you away I 
 don t know; your smile, I guess. Now, Billy, honest 
 Injun, don t you think you ought to go back and get 
 an education?" 
 
 "And be a quitter? And never find my mine?" 
 Billy gasped. Then he smiled and tried to whistle, as 
 Tim had bidden him long ago. 
 
 "You promised the Captain to obey him," Tim 
 managed to say, in face of that smile and that whistle. 
 
 "Yes," Billy admitted, pulling out the words as if 
 they were aching teeth, "yes, I did." 
 
 113 
 
THE VAGABOND 
 
 "And there s another thing. The Judge said two 
 years out here wouldn t put you back much, and he 
 gave me five hundred dollars to keep in secret to send 
 you home." 
 
 "The Judge did that!" exclaimed Billy in amaze 
 ment. "He did that without talking about it! Oh, 
 I m ashamed of myself for all I thought about him! 
 But I couldn t face him if I failed." (And the girl 
 how could he find her? What excuse could he make 
 for himself to her?) "I d rather tramp with a pack 
 and skillet forever than go back poor. Oh, I can t, I 
 can t go till I climb my mountain and find my mine. 
 That s what I came for, and, Tim, I ve I ve thought 
 I ve been pretty patient waiting on you grown folks. 
 Don t advise Father Bob to send me back, will you?" 
 
 Tim turned his face away rather than look into the 
 pleading eyes of the Vagabond. 
 
 "I ll think it over/ he said, and led the way back 
 to the cabin, where supper was waiting. 
 
 The Vagabond watched his two comrades prepar 
 ing their packs; he heard them lay out the routes 
 which they were to take to-morrow, going as far as 
 their rations would carry them; he received their or 
 ders about keeping house meekly enough to have ex 
 cited suspicion ; he wrapped himself in his blanket for 
 the night when they did. When heavy breathing told 
 him that they were well settled in slumber, he noise 
 lessly slipped into his boots, breeches, and jacket. 
 Outside in the moonlight he scribbled a note begging 
 Tim s pardon for taking his pack, expressing his sense 
 of responsibility for their plight and his confidence 
 that he could find gold, and praying them not to 
 worry, as he would return safe and sound. 
 
 114 
 
THE VAGABOND 
 
 As young and old guardians read these words, they 
 looked into each other s eyes and understood. The 
 highest mountain in sight, whose peak was cloaked in 
 snow, he had called his own and named The Topper. 
 In his moments of day-dreaming they had heard him 
 say, "There s gold in The Topper, I m sure. I ll 
 climb up and find it some day." They thought that, 
 with only a boy s glimmer of the difficulties, he would 
 start to ascend it and keep on with inborn stubborn 
 ness until his food was gone and return was impos 
 sible. Breakfastless, they started in pursuit by dif 
 ferent routes. Everyone in the camp joined, until 
 darkness sent them back without news. A week and 
 more had passed, when Tim Booker, hatless, coatless, 
 packless, came down the mountain-side. 
 
 "Where is he?" he cried. "Is he all right ? My boy 
 Billy, is he all right ? I was dying up there and some 
 body whispered to me that he was." 
 
 One man of the group, known as Missoury Dan, 
 Tim s sole rival in the gentle art, was never taken un 
 awares. 
 
 "Yaas," he drawled. "Ben here two days. Stum 
 bled into Pete Rooney s cabin over thar, clean done 
 up." 
 
 "Thank God! I ll " 
 
 "Now, wait a minit, Tim. We didn t move him. 
 Doctor s jest come up from Bubble Canyon. Says 
 our hoss sense saved his life. He s jest twixt an 
 tween with fever. Any excitement d kill him. As 
 fer you why, at the sight of his old friend Tim 
 Booker there d be a sob an twould all be over." 
 
 So they put Tim to bed in his own cabin, where he 
 sank into the sleep of exhaustion; and a miner who 
 
 115 
 
THE .VAGABOND 
 
 had the last drop o the cratur remaining in camp 
 shared it with Missoury Dan, while the others present 
 smacked their lips with such a whip to the imagina 
 tion that they almost tasted the reality denied them. 
 
 After thirty-six hours Tim awakened with the 
 start of one who has overslept an appointment. 
 
 "He said he d be back in ten days! This is the 
 tenth!" he said. 
 
 "Got back in eight, Tim. He s over in Pete Koo- 
 ney s cabin," Missoury Dan explained. 
 
 "I remember!" Tim rose to the edge of the bed. 
 "So you said. I ll go and see him." 
 
 "Sorry, Tim. There s ben a tur ble storm up in the 
 mount ns. Nuff snow s fell on the Sierrys to bury a 
 whole lot of them little European nations. It s set 
 the boy back a leetle. He ll get well, all right, less 
 he s excited by seeing some near an dear friend. The 
 thing fer you to do, Tim, is to lay down agin an rest 
 easy, whilst we rustle some broth so you ll be well s 
 soon s Billy is." 
 
 Tim smiled as the Vagabond had seen him smile in 
 the corn-row when he lighted his pipe and contem 
 plated the world with charitable cynicism. 
 
 "You re foolin me!" he cried, suddenly. 
 
 Dodging here, striking there, he ran to Pete 
 Rooney s cabin. The door was open; no one was 
 inside. 
 
 He turned toward the still, magnificent heights in 
 their aprons of snow, now gleaming under the sun of a 
 day always seeming fairer (because it follows a storm) 
 than its followers, which may be equally fair. He 
 cast a glance at the men, who were watching to see 
 what effect the truth would have upon him, and with 
 
 116 
 
THE VAGABOND 
 
 weak, uncertain footsteps and flashing eye started up 
 the hill-side. 
 
 "Quick, now, another good man an some grub!" 
 cried Missoury Dan. "He ll tire out perty soon; then 
 we ll bring him back. Gawd! The old man an the 
 boy are froze stiff up thar long ago, an our duty s to 
 the living." 
 
 117 
 
XIII 
 
 NOT QUAETZ 
 
 The Captain and Tim did not understand any bet 
 ter than most grown people where a boy s belief ends 
 and his fancy begins. Youthful discretion and reck 
 lessness go hand in hand, else many more masculine 
 necks would be broken before their time. However 
 much the Vagabond wanted to reach the summit of 
 The Topper, he dismissed it as entirely secondary to 
 the need of funds. In practice, he had not the slight 
 est idea of wading in the snow that separated the dirt 
 from easy panning. Where the white blanket met 
 the red of turf and the green of trees and the gray of 
 rock this was his path. 
 
 From dawn till darkness overtook him he travelled, 
 and then he built a fire, and lying close to it slept till 
 the cold awakened him, when he rebuilt it and began 
 cooking his breakfast. He was infinitely happy, hap 
 pier even than he had imagined he would be, the 
 bounding zest of adventure forbidding fatigue, while 
 at every favorable place he panned for colors. He 
 was surprised to find how far away The Topper was, 
 and how short a distance, on account of obstacles, he 
 made each day; and yet he took this as a part of the 
 game, as the price of freedom. On the seventh day, 
 just after he had thrown his pack across a torrent and 
 
 118 
 
THE VAGABOND 
 
 was about to leap over it himself, a yellow pebble in 
 the bank of the gorge attracted him with the sudden 
 ness of a flash of light at night. A bound carried him 
 to the other side. He looked again. The speck still 
 gleamed yellow from the new point of view, answering 
 to the prospector s test for gold, and a minute later he 
 knew that he had found a "pocket," which is every 
 placer miner s ambition. 
 
 Before man came upon the earth to force the ani 
 mals to give him room; before the Pyramids were 
 built ; while the men of nations long dead lobbied and 
 traded and rose early and gave false witness for a lit 
 tle gain; under countless generations of rulers, The 
 Topper, in the superb hazard of nature, had nestled 
 in its lap this present for a boy who, whatever his 
 faults, was not a "quitter." Yet in the California of 
 that day, when a prospector who had sought year in 
 and year out for treasure in vain, uncovered a fortune 
 by kicking up the turf in a wayside argument, the 
 fact was in nowise remarkable. 
 
 The Vagabond looked up at the white peak of The 
 Topper and then down at the valley stretching away 
 in tree-studded greens and browns toward the Pacific. 
 He felt the joy and the power of being alone with his 
 treasure where no human being had ever trod before. 
 In a grove well down toward the plain was the spot 
 where the girl should be waiting for him with her 
 apron ready to receive the nuggets. All in play, he 
 had a mind to imagine her actually there and to make 
 the journey to her bower. 
 
 But he had not yet climbed the mountain which 
 was down in his calendar as preceding the discovery 
 of his mine. And his mine was only placer. It was 
 
 119 
 
THE VAGABOND 
 
 quartz that he wanted; quartz that required the 
 knowledge in his mining and metallurgy book. All 
 that he had found was the funds to tide his friends 
 over their emergency. It occurred to him that his 
 "pocket" would do them no good or him either unless 
 he reached them with the news. The butterfly capt 
 ured, how far was the hunter from home? He went 
 back to examine his pack, as if he did not know al 
 ready the state of his larder. At sight of that hand 
 ful of beans and a thin strip of bacon he had a spasm 
 of demoralization. He found himself crying out to 
 Tim and the Captain in terror. The rocks echoed 
 back his words, and seemed to add the refrain, "What 
 is the use of gold to a starving boy?" Then he threw 
 back his head, the blue of his eyes became as calm as 
 the blue of the sky; he smiled and whistled. 
 
 "It s a good thing I found it as soon as I did," he 
 thought, "or I d kept right on going, maybe. Per 
 haps there s some place nearer than our camp." 
 
 He leapt up with the hope of his words. Climbing 
 to the highest point, a point whence you may ride in 
 a parlor car to San Francisco in a few hours to-day, 
 with an unobstructed view he strained his vision for 
 the sight of some human habitation. Not so much 
 as a curl of smoke rose on the clear, still air. 
 
 "The only sure way is the way I came," he said. "I 
 know that," he added, confidently, as if he were long 
 skilled in woodcraft. "I ve two meals and it took 
 seven days to come." His effort to whistle was atten 
 uated, but successful enough to make him feel bet 
 ter. "I haven t much to carry and I won t stop to 
 prospect. I ought to make it back in three days. 
 I can, and there s a full moon a full moon!" He 
 
 120 
 
THE VAGABOND 
 
 whistled evenly and determinedly as he began to re 
 trace his steps. 
 
 Though he told himself that he was certain of his 
 route, at times he palpitated with fear that he was not. 
 The next morning he stopped long enough to cook his 
 provender, of which he ate a carefully separated half; 
 the rest he was to eat cold on the way. Feeling not 
 only the pangs of hunger but also that uncertainty of 
 physical movement which a dizzy brain increases, he 
 decided that he must keep his legs going, going, going; 
 for if he once allowed them to stop they would never 
 start again. If he stumbled and fell, he rubbed his 
 eyes instead of his shins and tried to whistle. On the 
 night of the third day he was still scrambling on. In 
 three or four hours he knew, or thought he knew, by 
 the landmarks, that he would be in the cabin, and the 
 roaring in his head, he told himself, was only a joyful 
 humming. 
 
 Nature stepped in between him and his goal. A 
 stillness broken by no quivering leaf brought the heav 
 ens in silence pressing toward the earth. The crackle 
 of twigs, the scraping of his soles on the rocks, 
 seemed to come from the footsteps of some distant 
 person. Growing dimmer, gradually the stars were 
 blotted out. A blinding swirl brought a white, dense 
 night as the warning of the approach of human power- 
 lessness. The heavens opened, with the wind in havoc, 
 to fling their downpour in a carpet far below the old 
 line where melting snow met turf. The shimmering 
 of light through driven flakes showed the Vagabond 
 an opening under a great mass of stone where no gust 
 had yet penetrated. This rock in its cold blue and 
 gray tints was as radiant of welcome as ever was a 
 
 121 
 
THE VAGABOND 
 
 shaded bench of an inn garden to a dusty traveller. 
 As he launched toward it, wet and blinded, wallowing 
 to his hips, he became conscious of another presence 
 in this area of despair. He saw it stumble and fall, 
 and plunged to its side. 
 
 "Come, Father Bob! Come, Captain, Captain!" 
 he begged. 
 
 A flush of strength came back to the old manj 
 enough, with the boy s help, to bring them to that 
 succoring black hole. There, in the forced twilight, 
 while the storm was sweeping by as harmlessly as the 
 swashing waves past a steamer s closed port-holes, the 
 Vagabond unloosened the belt of his beloved leader, 
 threw his own coat over him, and rubbed his hands 
 and pounded his legs. Then he saw that on some 
 other occasion when the wind had been in the oppo 
 site direction it had blown leaves and twigs into the 
 cave. As hastily as he could make it, he had a fire 
 going. 
 
 "I was coming back on the other side of the divide," 
 the Captain whispered, "and I was crossing over about 
 opposite our camp. At any rate, I thought I was 
 yes, I thought I was. Yes, Captain Robert Herrick, 
 U. S. A., you have lost your way. Yes, they may say 
 I have lost my way, but no man can say that I m 
 afraid. I never did want to die propped up on pil 
 lows with a pile of medicine bottles at my elbow and 
 folks looking on to hear the curtain rung down with 
 the death-rattle. I you vagabond, you, with your 
 freckled face and your head in the air, when it clears 
 you make west for the edge of the snow, and keep go 
 ing till you strike a creek bed and follow it down 
 stream. Don t be afraid to drink water. That wilj 
 
 122 
 
THE VAGABOND 
 
 keep you awake and stop the f aintness if it does make 
 you sick afterward and you follow the stream and 
 you re bound to find human beings." 
 
 "We aren t lost! We aren t! I know we aren t!" 
 the Vagabond cried, and he shook the Captain with 
 all his might. "You remember that big pine that 
 stands all alone the one the landslide didn t get and 
 with the finger pointing toward The Topper? Well, 
 I saw that just before it got so dark I couldn t see 
 anything." 
 
 The shaking and the fire began to bring the blood 
 back into the Captain s limbs. 
 
 "You did, sir," he said, "and you re punching me 
 up! Why, I m the quitter! Yes, sir, I m the quitter 
 now, and why, you ve built a fire ! Why, we re just 
 as cosey here as bugs in a rug. We ll eat snow and im 
 agine it s the whites of eggs, and we ll chew a twig 
 and that ll be our bacon, sir." 
 
 "Oh, Father Bob!" was all the Vagabond could say 
 at first, so full was he at the sight of his leader re 
 turning to his militant self. "That isn t all," he add 
 ed. "You needn t worry now. See what I ve found!" 
 He drew the nuggets from his pocket. 
 
 The Captain fondled them, his eyesight growing 
 better in the warmth of their glow. 
 
 "A child shall lead them!" he whispered, and soon 
 fell asleep. 
 
 The Vagabond drew himself away from the sopo 
 rific warmth and looked out at the storm away 
 from the hypnotic flame, which he fed with eyes 
 averted. He thought that the fire should be kept go 
 ing for the Captain s sake; he feared, for reasons less 
 manifest than instinctive, to allow himself to go to 
 
 123 
 
THE VAGABOND 
 
 sleep. Now a million claws seemed pulling at his 
 stomach, and then a wave of nausea would sweep over 
 him. He crawled to the gate-way of snow forming 
 across the mouth of the cave. After he had eaten a 
 handful and put a handful on the back of his neck, 
 which he found reviving, a shadow fluttered out of the 
 flaky screen and there landed at his feet a broken- 
 winged partridge. He seized the ball of damp feath 
 ers and held it tight. Here was food come out of the 
 heavens. Father Bob should have broth and meat 
 when he awoke. Then he felt the beating of the 
 frightened bird s heart against his own. 
 
 "You came in here to save your life, too, didn t 
 you ?" he said. All the sympathy he had for the hunt 
 ed welled up in his throat. "You ve made a hard 
 fight, too, just as hard as we have. I wish you hadn t 
 that broken wing. I I can t!" By shouts and shak 
 ings he awakened the Captain. "There s a meal, 
 Father Bob, if if you can kill it." He turned away 
 and heard the death-flaps of the bird with a shudder. 
 
 When the storm cleared the morning after, they 
 were the stronger for the sustenance. 
 
 "Now, sir, once we re out of this we ll follow a 
 creek bed. That s the safe way," said the Captain, 
 who had little confidence in the Vagabond s sense of 
 their position. 
 
 When at last they had clambered nearly to the edge 
 of the snow line, the Vagabond, his face suffused with 
 the pleasure of surprising the Captain with the ease 
 of their task, now pointed to the giant tree which had 
 been one of the landmarks of their surroundings since 
 they began building the dam. A few minutes later, 
 on the hill-side overlooking the camp, they met tho 
 
 124 
 
THE VAGABOND . 
 
 hatless, coatless, wild-eyed Tim Booker. As lie 
 looked at his haggard friends, Billy realized the meas 
 ure of his responsibility for the hardships they had 
 endured. 
 
 "I didn t think you d follow. I said I d return all 
 right. Oh, I ll pay you back for all this. It s better 
 than any mine to have two such partners. Oh, I m 
 so glad, even if it isn t quartz, that there is enough 
 so you won t have to worry while you rest and get 
 well!" 
 
 125 
 
PART II 
 
 XIV 
 
 ENTEE JIMMY POOL 
 
 In January of 1861 two of the passengers on a 
 steamer due to depart from San Francisco for the 
 Isthmus in half an hour were becoming anxious be 
 cause the third member of their party had not yet 
 appeared. Repeating assurances to each other, they 
 nevertheless strained their eyes at the last tug ap 
 proaching from shore, as earnestly as if faces were 
 actually recognizable a thousand yards away. 
 
 The tufts of hair in front of Captain Herrick s 
 ears were pure white now. Otherwise, ten years had 
 scarcely changed him. He was as erect as ever. His 
 flesh had nothing of the tinge of old age ; the same 
 bronze skin tightly drawn over his high cheek-bones 
 numbered a few more wrinkles which had been 
 formed under influences softer than those of the drill- 
 ground, and his eyes shone out of their criss-crossed 
 citadel with more than keenness and good-humor 
 with the happiness and prosperity due to his invest 
 ment in a runaway boy. 
 
 Tim Booker had thickened until his great height 
 was more like a pillar than a pole. A long beard 
 of straw-bleached color added to the effect of primi- 
 
 127 
 
THE VAGABOND 
 
 live strength. It seemed as if the titanic hand which 
 grasped the rail was larger ; certainly it was stronger 
 and accordingly more dangerous to an adversary, as 
 two or three could testify. Even as his strength had 
 grown, thanks to his vocation, so his imagination had 
 grown, thanks to his associations. While he was still 
 the incarnation of truth when his eye twinkled, un 
 der the favoring conditions of the California of 
 that day he had practised his precept that it was 
 stingy to pass a camp lie along without improving 
 it, until experience had made him a past master 
 of the art of harmless fiction. Between the two there 
 was the irrevocable bond of friendship often made 
 by parts that find their wanting qualities in each 
 other. 
 
 "A thousand oceans wouldn t keep him," said Tim. 
 "He s found some other cripple or widow that he s 
 going to take back. He s there on the tug, all 
 right." 
 
 So he was, but his companion was not of either type 
 that Tim had mentioned. The young man who pre 
 ceded the Vagabond up the gangway was lean and 
 wabbly as a porpoise-hide shoe-string, and time was 
 to prove that he was as enduring. 
 
 "Now, no jinks! You re going with us and there s 
 an end of it, Jimmy Pool," said the Vagabond, when 
 they set foot on deck. 
 
 Jimmy dropped languidly against the rail. 
 
 "I suppose I might as well stay now that we ve got 
 as far as we have," he drawled in reply; and the 
 Vagabond made haste to the purser s side. 
 
 " You ve got me down for ten tickets; Mrs. Dow- 
 ling, Tom Smith" he read off from a card the 
 
 128 
 
THE VAGABOND 
 
 names of those that his bounty was sending back to 
 their relatives in the East. "And now I want still 
 another." 
 
 When the purser stated unequivocally that he had 
 not a berth left, the Vagabond rejoined : 
 
 "Who wants a berth? Passage, that s all. Who 
 wants a stuffy berth on the Pacific when he can sleep 
 on deck under the stars ?" 
 
 The ticket bought, he brought the languid figure 
 away from the rail to introduce him to Father Bob 
 and Tim. 
 
 "This is Jimmy Pool," he began; then stopped, 
 for Jimmy had put his heels together and, every fibre 
 in his body stiffening, was an automaton, saluting 
 his former officer. 
 
 "So you had the gold fever, too, Pool," said the 
 Captain. 
 
 "Yes, sir. That reminds me," Jimmy drawled, 
 "that we re both plain cits now." Whereupon, 
 Jimmy melted back into ennui and leaned against 
 the nearest stable object. 
 
 "He was a good soldier, I ll warrant," the Vaga 
 bond added, to the Captain. 
 
 "As good as they make, sir." 
 
 "I knew it, though I ve known Jimmy only two 
 hours. The first thing I heard of him did him credit 
 enough. He and his partner Tompkins had got to 
 gether a good bag of dust apiece and were going home. 
 Tompkins was returning to marry his sweetheart and 
 bring her back to the coast ; Jimmy was returning to 
 see his old mother. Tompkins when he reached 
 Frisco thought he hadn t quite enough. So he put 
 a few checks on roulette in the hope of getting more 
 
 129 
 
THE VAGABOND 
 
 and kept on doing this until he hadn t a cent left. 
 Then Jimmy gave Tompkins his share and saw him 
 aboard ship. 
 
 "Now for the second that was when I saw 
 Jimmy first. He was leaning against something or 
 other except he s doing something great, Jimmy al 
 ways is, as you can see for yourself when a worthy 
 named Wilks, one of the worst of his breed in Frisco, 
 rushed up to him and put a muzzle fairly in his face. 
 I m going to kill you, d n you! Wilks said. Jimmy 
 never so much as straightened his knee-joint. Is 
 that gun a Smith & Wesson or a Colt? he asked, 
 as if it was a case of taking cake or pie. Wilks was 
 dumfounded by the coolness of the man. He looked 
 as if it would ease his conscience a little if Jimmy 
 would either tremble and whine or at least stand up 
 stiff to be shot. When he recovered from his surprise 
 
 he said, Say your prayers, you / and he shoved 
 
 the muzzle closer to Jimmy s face. There s no need 
 of hurrying about it, Jimmy said ; I haven t got any 
 gun and you have the drop on me, and I guess you 
 can hit me at that range. 
 
 "And Jimmy talked more in his quiet way, and 
 the next thing we knew his hand flew up and the re 
 volver went into the air; and before we had taken 
 stock of that event, Wilks was on the pavement 
 Jimmy picked up the revolver and took out the car 
 tridges and handed it back to Wilks, with this gentle 
 advice : You don t appear to know when to use them, 
 so you re just as well off without them. It was the 
 coolest thing a fellow who never sees any more of 
 Frisco than I do ever saw, and Jimmy Pool had my 
 heart and hand from that moment." 
 
 130 
 
THE VAGABOND 
 
 The hero himself looked dreamily out to sea as if 
 he were passing the compliment on to the fishes. 
 
 "And when you happen on such a man, in my opin 
 ion, Father Bob, the only thing to do is to enlist him. 
 I think we ll find Jimmy useful at the mine when 
 we come back. Besides, his life wouldn t be safe in 
 Frisco now. Wilks will take his first chance on a 
 dark night to put a bullet in his back." 
 
 "What! I didn t think of that. It looks as if I was 
 sneaking." 
 
 Jimmy s languid parts sprang into action. He 
 pushed through the people on the deck toward the 
 gangway with the agility of a cat. But the tug had 
 already drawn off, the steamer was getting under 
 way, and the Vagabond s detaining hand was on hia 
 shoulder. 
 
 "Well, I guess nobody ll think I m afraid of Wilks, 
 anyway," he said. "There s one thing I ought to tell 
 you I won t come back if there s a war between the 
 States. I d have to be in that. I don t know as your 
 investment ll pay you very well." 
 
 The Vagabond put his hand on the former private s 
 shoulder : 
 
 "Two hours ago I didn t know you, Jimmy Pool," 
 he said. "On your looks and actions I liked you. I 
 knew just how you felt with your thoughts for months 
 all quivering in the expectancy of going home. What 
 is the cost of your fare beside the pleasure of your 
 company ? What has money to do with liking a man, 
 anyway ? I like you, I tell you, Jimmy Pool, and I 
 hope I ll be half-way agreeable to you." 
 
 Jimmy shifted his weight from one leg to the other 
 and made a compliment : 
 
 131 
 
THE VAGABOND 
 
 "And you re my kind of a man, hat and boots and 
 clothes and body in em and heart in body," he said, 
 "and you played to my soft spot my old mother." 
 
 With that, the Vagabond sought out the other pas 
 sengers, "the widows and cripples," whom he was 
 helping back to the East. Each was warned to keep 
 his kindness a secret ; for all the pleasure and all the 
 reward a deed held for him was the doing. Lion- 
 hearted, warm-hearted boy had become lion-hearted, 
 warm-hearted man, sweetened by stern experience, 
 softened by the love of his friends, dignified by power. 
 
 After the money from the "pocket" was expended, 
 there had been ups and downs for the three fortune- 
 hunters; and on one of the ups, at his behest, they 
 had made a journey to the Sandwich Islands in 
 satisfaction of his vagabondish wish to see a little 
 more of the world. 
 
 When he was nineteen he had found the quartz of 
 his heart s desire. This ledge called for the knowl 
 edge in his beloved mining and metallurgy book; in 
 the course of time, by the application of skill and 
 machinery, it would yield him a great fortune. His 
 comrades would never want for funds again. To the 
 Captain was assured a comfortable old age; to Tim 
 a competence in exchange for the pleasure of the 
 giant s love and companionship. For himself, he had 
 the occupation of his choice, that of taking wealth out 
 of the stubborn rock without trading or rubbing el 
 bows in city streets. Yes, he was happy, infinitely 
 happy in his gratitude to the Captain for having 
 humored a boy s fancy and in having paid the Captain 
 back materially and sentimentally. 
 
 And yet his ambition was not complete because of 
 132 
 
THE VAGABOND 
 
 the glorious secret which was still entirely his own. 
 The girl was as radiantly clear in his mind as the 
 day after he had seen her. He nursed his fancy as 
 one does some sweet absurdity that has the simulation 
 of reality in day-dreams only so long as it is not 
 shared with anyone else. He had learned as soon as 
 the news was brought to the garrison of Captain Lan- 
 ley s death and his daughter s journey to the Lanley 
 plantation. Afterward, by artifice which did not re 
 veal his personal interest, he ascertained, from time to 
 time, that she had not changed her residence. Matur 
 ity had given him a subtler appreciation of the barrier 
 of caste. He knew that they were not separated by 
 distance alone. It was with thoughts of her that he 
 had learned to dance on one of his visits to the Post ; 
 that he had studied the ways of Southern officers and 
 their wives and imbibed the instinct of certain social 
 forms which did not obtain in mining regions. He 
 had met women, and pretty women, too, not only in 
 the army but in the little circle of the city itself, and 
 he found them toy figures beside the fair one of his 
 imagery. 
 
 At the same time the contact with camp or town 
 made him sceptical and miserable. How ridiculous, 
 he thought then, that a small boy s liking for a small 
 girl should be the controlling feature of a man s life ; 
 how ridiculous the stern realities of human society 
 made the fancy that had been wine to his spirit. Ke- 
 turn to the mine made him again the vagabond made 
 him joyous, made him himself, which is the best ex 
 planation of him with his thoughts softly dwelling 
 on possibilities. 
 
 Did she remember that odd little William whom 
 133 
 
THE VAGABOND 
 
 she had christened Billy ? Would the woman greet 
 the man s story of the finding of a mine with the de 
 light of the Vision for the boy s capture of a butter 
 fly? For the thousandth time his imagination pict 
 ured her beauty in the bloom of twenty. He saw her 
 half a head below his own height, with the frost of a 
 winter s day in her words when dignity was required, 
 with the freshness of a June morning for her friends, 
 with the mole dimpling into her chin in her moments 
 of great happiness and in bestowing honors. And her 
 adorable hair I It must be long now and thick enough 
 to make a great braid. Was it still of the color and 
 sheen of the chestnut fresh from the burr ? Yes, it 
 was, in the moments when every man feels that hid 
 den in some bower, far or near, is the feminine coun 
 terpart of his masculinity. Were her eyes still of the 
 brown which could melt your whole being into them 
 with their commendation or in their censure toss 
 you into the gutter ? Yes, they were, in the fancy of 
 the wanderer who lay on the moss after the mid-day 
 meal or looked into the camp-fire s embers or at the 
 stars at night. Then, with a brush of his arm across 
 his eyes, he saw the reality. Perhaps the dimple was 
 gone, the mole prominent and bearded with scraggly 
 hairs; perhaps she had the devil s own temper. If 
 she were not already engaged to a scion of a neigh 
 boring plantation, her provincial nature would see 
 in him merely a freckled, sandy-haired clod of a 
 miner and a Northerner. 
 
 Moreover, why should he expect this part of his 
 boyish dream to come true when the others had not ? 
 For he had found his first mine before he had climbed 
 his mountain; and his quartz ledge was not in The 
 
 134 
 
THE VAGABOND 
 
 Topper but in a ridge between two insignificant peaks. 
 Yet the facts were true to the fancy in the main. 
 Though she had changed, though he had changed, why 
 should she not be true in the main ? Rather than ex 
 plode it with reality, he told himself, it were better 
 to continue worshipping at the shrine of a beautiful 
 fiction and wait for time to disabuse him of it and 
 make him free. 
 
 Time had done nothing of the kind. The twelfth, 
 year of his absence found the ideal more firmly in his 
 heart than the eleventh. The crushing of the rock in 
 his ledge, the bags of gold which he sent to the mint, 
 were for her. He was covetous only when he thought 
 of her greeting the clean-up with the rapturous smile 
 that had in nowise faded from his memory. If he 
 made plans, far-reaching and upbuilding his power in 
 the future, he liked to think that they looked toward 
 a domain at her disposal. It was all out of keeping 
 with his splendid manhood that he should be content 
 with imagery alone. Only association, he concluded, 
 could cure him of his idiosyncrasy ; or else the blood 
 leapt in rhythm to his temples with the hope turn 
 his dream into verity. His going for machinery was, 
 after all, an excuse. His real object was to feel the 
 egoism-killing contact of a great city like New York. 
 And then, if he was still ailing, he would call on her 
 and be swept into the road with a stare. To his 
 friends a vagabond and the possessor of a worn copy 
 of Mining and Metallurgy whose teachings he had 
 practised and expanded; to square- jawed men of af 
 fairs a calm, blue-eyed master of his property, to him 
 self he was one who found his strength and inspira 
 tion in a piece of sentimental folly. 
 
 135 
 
THE VAGABOND 
 
 "Of course the mole is bearded ; of course you ll be 
 disillusioned," said the little devils to him. 
 
 "No, it s not ; no, you ll not. It is all coming true," 
 he told himself when he rose glowing from his morn 
 ing dip in a mountain-stream. "The mountain and 
 the mine and the girl 1" 
 
 136 
 
IMPULSE BETRAYS A SECRET 
 
 When lie had kept it so long, the Vagabond was 
 surprised at himself for yielding his secret in an im 
 pulse. On the second day out, while he and Father 
 Bob were sitting together, well apart from the other 
 passengers, in a reminiscent mood, their first meeting 
 was rehearsed again, point by point. 
 
 "What a fool they thought that old bach, was," said 
 the Captain, "for adopting a vagabond, sir, that he 
 didn t know anything about ! That shows what poor 
 judges we all are about other folks s affairs. You 
 freckle-faced little cuss, you, you ve renewed an old 
 man s youth. And you ve climbed your mountain and 
 got your mine. Yes, sir, you ve gratified all your 
 ambitions, just as you said you would." 
 
 It was then, in the glow of filial love, on his lips to 
 say that he had not the greatest of all remained ; but 
 instead he poured out his gratitude in language more 
 full if no more heart-felt than that of his boyhood. 
 The Captain laid his hand on the Vagabond s knee, 
 and patting it, said, fondly: 
 
 "And where you go Father Bob goes, don t he, as 
 long as he is young enough to follow ? Together we ll 
 see the sights of Broadway and together we ll see 
 Washington and together we ll go to Belmore and 
 show Miss Felicia how this old savage, heathen, wild 
 
 137 
 
THE VAGABOND 
 
 Indian those were her words, by the Eternal, sir 
 brings up a boy. Together! That s all Father Bob 
 asks, as long as he lives. Together!" 
 
 The old man s reference to his age, a note of sad 
 ness in his voice, his affection shining out of his moist 
 eyes, the keen memory of his chivalrous belief in a 
 boy s dream on the guarantee of that boy s word and a 
 keener appreciation of obligation which manhood 
 brought, made the Vagabond feel guilty at having 
 kept a thing of such importance from his benefactor. 
 
 "Together! That s the way it has always been 
 except, there s one thing I would rather do alone. 
 I have to call on a girl." Almost unconsciously he 
 had let the fact slip. 
 
 "A girl !" gasped the Captain. "How in the devil 
 a girl!" 
 
 It was too late to draw back now; abruptly and 
 characteristically the Vagabond told the whole truth. 
 
 "Yes, to be honest, a girl I m in love with or 
 think I am !" 
 
 "A girl! Good God!" cried the Captain. "I 
 never saw you shining up to any particular petti 
 coat! Who, in thunder who, in thunder, is she?" 
 He sat bolt upright with a hand on each knee, search 
 ing the Vagabond s face with a drill-sergeant s stare. 
 
 "Do you remember little Miss Lanley who used to 
 be at the Post ?" 
 
 "Yes, sir. We called her little Miss General. But" 
 the Captain puffed out his cheeks in his amaze 
 ment "how in the devil ? She hasn t been in Cali 
 fornia! You haven t been East! How in the devil 
 can you be in love with a girl two thousand miles 
 
 138 
 
THE VAGABOND 
 
 "That s what I wonder. I don t even know that 
 I am in love with her. I saw her for half an hour 
 when I was a boy. It was she I came to see at the 
 Post," he went on, carried into enthusiasm and full 
 belief in his fancy. "It was she I climbed the moun 
 tain for ; she I found the mine for. If it hadn t been 
 for her I would never have seen you. I was asking 
 the sentry about her when you spied me." 
 
 "And you never told me never, never, sir!" re 
 torted the Captain. 
 
 "No. I thought it would upset the argosy of my 
 dreams. I thought it would make me seem ridicu 
 lous, and it has. I wish I hadn t told you. I am go 
 ing to call on her ; that s all." 
 
 "Ever written to her ? Ever heard from her ?" 
 
 "No. Probably she doesn t remember me. I m 
 simply going to call on her and tell her my story." 
 
 "Never told me! I knew it!" Father Bob pro 
 ceeded, his wrath rising in contemplation of what 
 had been denied him and what was in store for him, 
 his jealousy fast making a fancy a courtship and a 
 courtship a marriage. "I knew it ! I knew a woman 
 would come between us. Yes, sir, it s a woman that 
 always does. Well, sir, hitch on and follow! Bob 
 Herrick ain t been in one white man s, one greaser s, 
 and five Injun wars, he ain t so old yet, that he can t 
 bach, it by himself. How in the devil how" he 
 rose and went pacing angrily along the deck. 
 
 On his part, the Vagabond gazed wonderingly out 
 on the long, gently rolling swell that rocked the 
 steamer on that warm day with the hand of a sleepy 
 nurse-maid. 
 
 When reason took the place of indignation, the 
 139 
 
THE VAGABOND 
 
 Captain saw how groundless was his alarm. This 
 Billy was only a boyish man, even as he had been in 
 some respects a mannish boy. My lady of Virginia 
 would laugh at the miner and send his pride a-soar- 
 ing. He who had seen so few women would see so 
 many in New York that former predilections would 
 melt on contemplating their object, if, finally, he 
 went to her at all. 
 
 Changing his tack completely, he sailed back in 
 the best of humor to crack a jest at the Vagabond s 
 expense. Thereafter, whenever no one might over 
 hear, he would snigger and whisper in the Vaga 
 bond s ear, "Girl!" or, "I met her for half an hour;" 
 or, "She probably has a wart on her nose, now;" or, 
 "You ll be in time to witness her marriage to a fire- 
 eating secessionist." At first, the Vagabond would 
 blush and flee. Later, he would smile and possibly 
 add a soft, "Yes, Father Bob." If the Captain had 
 any idea that he had applied a cure, he was disabused 
 of it when, upon arriving in New York, they found 
 that they were in time to see the inauguration, an 
 opportunity which he advised they should not miss. 
 
 "Certainly I am in favor of it. It s on my way 
 to call on the girl," said the Vagabond. 
 
 Jimmy Pool hurried away to his mother. Tim was 
 only too glad to be left alone for the great splurge 
 that he had long nursed in his perfervid imagination. 
 
 "I m going to Newland Centre and get the best 
 span of hosses in the country," he said. "I m going 
 to have gold-plated harness and wear a high hat and 
 a watch-chain with links as big as your fist and a 
 look like a foreign king, and drive up in front of Jim 
 Eawkins s door and tell him I wouldn t mind buy 
 ing his old farm if it wasn t so d d small." 
 
 140 
 
XVI 
 
 THE MISTS ON THE PLAIN 
 
 In half an hour Abraham Lincoln would be Presi 
 dent of the United States. Meanwhile, the Senate 
 talked, with its mind on the creeping hands of the 
 Senate clock. 
 
 On the floor was the force and the simplicity of the 
 Republic; the Southern members longing to hear 
 the slap of the gauntlet at their feet; a part of the 
 Northern members hoping that the new knight 
 would throw it, and the rest spellbound by the crisis 
 and half expecting some miracle to avert secession 
 when they knew that the day of miracles was past 
 all, to a man, wondering what the great unknown 
 quantity out of the West, already on his way to the 
 Capitol, would do. 
 
 In the gallery, in contrast to the immobile, tired 
 faces of a school-room full of the representatives 
 of the passions, the cliques, the prejudices, and the 
 great heart and great principles of thirty millions of 
 people, were the colors of woman s garb in competi 
 tive show. In the diplomatic gallery facing the chair 
 was a full panoply of medals and gold braid, most 
 amazing and ridiculous to constituents from distant 
 places ; pates bald and skins wrinkled and pasty from 
 the age and the dinners that go with diplomatic suc 
 cess, making a mask for the glistening front of a jew- 
 
 141 
 
THE VAGABOND 
 
 eller s window. Even the Ministers were interested. 
 They smiled in contemplation of the division of a 
 nation which had imagined that it could remain in 
 tact without an hereditary ruler all save the august 
 Cossack, ever confident in the might of his acreage 
 and ever casting his eye abroad for the discomfiture 
 of England. Scattered here and there were the epau 
 lets of our army and navy. On some of the officers 
 their uniforms sat with the snug comfort of loyalty; 
 on others, with the irksomeness of garments long out 
 of style. But the face of no one showed more con 
 cern than that of curiosity. It was a fete, with the 
 buzz of rambling comment looking down upon the 
 supposed obsequies of a nation that had been fondly 
 called heaven-born and indestructible. 
 
 In spectators seats, which one of the California 
 Senators had provided, were Father Bob and his 
 ward, who felt the oppression of his "store clothes" in 
 contrast to the display around him. In common with 
 everyone, except those who blinked from the loss of 
 a night s sleep through the dull proceedings of the 
 floor, the Vagabond was scanning the sloping walls 
 of faces for someone that he knew. Suddenly his 
 gaze was caught and held fast by a party of five, 
 whose State any Washingtonian of that day or 
 any reader of fiction of this could have told at a 
 glance. 
 
 Item, one proud old man of seventy-five, clasping 
 the handle of his cane as he sat erect, Mr. Lanley; 
 item, a woman of sixty, whom time had treated so 
 kindly as fully to warrant her in reporting ten years 
 less, Mrs. Bulwer; item, an army officer of thirty-five, 
 looking as if he had seen more of the world than any 
 
 142 
 
THE VAGABOOT) 
 
 of the others, Richard Bulwer; item, a young army 
 officer, consciously handsome, with long black curia 
 and a haughtiness that could quickly turn sullen, Jef 
 ferson Southbridge. His smiles were all for the fifth 
 member of the party; her ? s for everybody, rippling 
 with the joy of the scene. The Vagabond s memory 
 of that face was too clear for growth in inches or the 
 expression of womanhood to deceive him. It was 
 she! He drank her in with the thirst of the many 
 years weighted with his fancy. He was close enough 
 to know the folly of his fears of a bearded mole. That 
 little patch played into the dimple as of yore. She 
 was the same girl, ruling those around her as she had 
 him in their short acquaintance. As he surveyed her, 
 with the blood drumming out a song in his temples, 
 she never cast a glance in his direction. 
 
 He had no idea of the passing of the minutes, aa 
 heart and mind were lost in the intoxication of hia 
 sight. A hush as abrupt as an explosion in a cathedral 
 recalled him. He looked in the direction in which she 
 tossed her head contemptuously and saw, with the 
 light from the roof streaming down upon his homely 
 face and the dark passage of the corridor behind him, 
 Abraham Lincoln, in seeming apology for his intru 
 sion. His angularity was heightened by contrast with 
 the man on whose arm he leaned. A nice, com 
 fortable gentleman, this old President, long prostrate 
 between two stools, with a welcome arm-chair by the 
 fire and slippered obscurity at hand. To the galleries 
 and the Senate he meant no more than the Vice-Presi 
 dent s rostrum or the simple chairs for great figures 
 placed in front of it or any piece of furniture neces 
 sary to the function. All parties knew him and had 
 
 143 
 
THE VAGABOKD 
 
 done with him, scarcely taking the time to give breath 
 to the thought^ as Mr. Lanley did, that at least he was 
 a gentleman. "Wearily they had counted the hours un 
 til he should go, meanwhile dissecting every word of 
 his successor. A strange-looking knight this for a 
 mighty work! It is difficult, if not impossible, now 
 for the very leaders who saw him on that day to real 
 ize how he appeared to them then, when a shouting 
 convention and geographical distribution of delegates 
 had lifted him out of semi-obscurity to lead an im 
 petuous, storm-riding new party that little foresaw the 
 crisis its success would precipitate. 
 
 His height was great, and it was height without 
 proportion. His pendulous arms hung pivotless by 
 his side. But there was character and power in them; 
 and character and power even in the black coat which 
 hung on the stooping shoulders; and character and 
 power even in the carelessly knotted black tie. 
 The long, thin neck rose out of the ill-fitting collar 
 as if it would lift the head higher than the height 
 of the shoulders warranted. The ears were pro 
 digious. His barber might have said that he shaved 
 only for the purpose of keeping the hair away 
 from his lips; so a fringe of beard encircled the chin, 
 and the great mouth with its mobile lines was revealed. 
 Not in the deep-set, soft eyes, seeming as they were 
 so ready to forgive human weakness, but in that 
 mouth lay the suggestion of the firmness that set the 
 limit of his kindliness. The nose was as prodigious 
 as the mouth and ears; as prodigious as the man, who 
 was not cut out nicely but with grand strokes, worthy 
 of the Almighty. The bushy eyebrows stood on two 
 bony promontories^ as if guarding the sweetness and 
 
 144 
 
THE VAGABOND 
 
 tenderness of the lights through which his soul shone 
 forth. A little space of sallow skin and then a thatch 
 of straight black hair hid the brain that held the des 
 tiny of the nation. He was of the newest breed from 
 the newest part of the New World, where the rivers 
 carry their waters the length of a continent, and men 
 are cast in that mould which can deal with great 
 things in unaffected simplicity. 
 
 Well must he have known what the members of 
 the august body were thinking, as well as he could 
 keep his own counsel. The Southerners, with scores 
 of cradle-trained statesmen in their well-formed bat 
 tle-lines, smiled in elation over an opponent rough and 
 unskilled. To the Westerners he was "Abe" Lincoln, 
 good mixer and steady thinker, and their man. To 
 the Eastern members he was the product of an envi 
 ronment at odds with his task. Had they foreseen the 
 crisis, the Northerners, as a whole, would have sunk 
 politics to choose some great man of the party of long 
 standing fame. We have to thank them for their 
 kindness. We did not need the finished product of 
 public service, confident that the wisdom for every 
 day affairs is sufficient for a crisis. We needed a 
 mighty, patient soul ! We needed the man ! 
 
 Diffidently, in the tense silence, without even a flut 
 tering whisper to interrupt it now, Abraham Lincoln, 
 perhaps the first President to make no physical effort 
 to rise to a theatrical occasion, walked down the aisle 
 between the packed law-makers and the packed gal 
 leries, and awkwardly settled his lean person in the 
 chair in front of the Vice-President s rostrum, where 
 he awaited, in accord with the time-honored custom, 
 the swearing-in of the Vice-President, Mr. Hamlin, 
 
 145 
 
THE VAGABOND 
 
 of Maine, who had walked over to the Capitol as any 
 other plain citizen would. 
 
 At that moment Southbridge was saying: "The 
 Yankees needn t think anybody ll doubt his origin. 
 You can see for yourself that he d be much more 
 at home if you put him in blue jeans and gave him 
 an axe and a log." 
 
 Miss Lanley was sober. 
 
 "I I wish, for the South s sake, he wasn t so 
 so strong," gasped her womanly intuition. "He s 
 homely, he s uncouth, but oh, he is strong!" 
 
 Already the galleries were emptying, leaving the 
 Vice-President to deliver his speech to vacant seats, 
 while the spectators hastened to their places on the 
 Capitol steps. When the Vagabond saw the Virgin 
 ians rise, he led the way for the Captain and him 
 self to go, as well, thinking not of addressing his Vi 
 sion of the Pool but of getting a closer view. As 
 he stepped from the bottom stair of one of the outlets 
 of the gallery into the long corridor, looking among 
 the throng and not at those immediately near for a 
 sight of her, he had that chilling, ugly impression of 
 treading on a lady s gown. He drew back, with some 
 awkward, most sincere word of apology, and eyes 
 met eyes, with a thrill to one pair only. After wait 
 ing for thirteen years, to introduce himself to her 
 in that way ! The mole dipped slightly into the chin, 
 puckered with impatience on behalf of that poor back 
 breadth, and she turned away, while in the gap that 
 his sudden and forcible halt had formed, the young 
 est of her companions passed between them. 
 
 "The shouters for Abraham," said Southbridge, 
 sounding the words in imitation of the Yankee nasal 
 
 146 
 
THE VAGABOND 
 
 twang, "seem to have as big feet as Abraham. Prob 
 ably Abraham will make this gent Minister to Aus 
 tria. He would shine at court." 
 
 "He was sorry enough, poor bumpkin!" the Vaga 
 bond overheard her say. "Don t let him hear you." 
 
 "Yes, it might happen to anybody," the elder of 
 ficer added, with the sharpness of long acquaintance 
 with the other s foibles. "Everybody who comes to 
 an inauguration can t be a Chesterfield or where 
 would be the distinction for you?" 
 
 The party separated themselves from the crowd 
 under the dome and passed out at the west wing, thus 
 signifying that they had seen enough without wit 
 nessing the open-air ceremonies. 
 
 "When you are moving among ladies, sir," said the 
 Captain, with a wink, "keep one eye on the tail of 
 their gowns and the other eye on the look-out to di 
 vine their wishes. In that way, sir, you ll come to 
 be appreciated by the whole woman." 
 
 Preoccupied by his embarrassment and exaspera 
 tion, the Vagabond was oblivious of what passed 
 around him. The Judges of the Supreme Court, the 
 members of the Cabinet, the foreign Ministers filing 
 down to their places on the platform, the favored 
 constituents and their wives and daughters who 
 packed the tiers of seats, were a confused mass of 
 bustling, chattering people. "With an effort he 
 roused himself to a sense of appreciation when his 
 companion, with affectionate pride, pointed out the 
 still majestic figure of the veteran of two foreign 
 wars twenty years apart, towering on his horse above 
 the field of humanity that eddied under the varying 
 impulses of its atoms, until, with a shock, it was 
 
 147 
 
THE VAGABOND 
 
 still as the spare form of Abraham Lincoln stood be 
 fore the people, who, by their free will, had dele 
 gated their power to him. In that silence of the 
 great assembly, when all speech, all thought, all 
 heart-beats seemed to have stopped with a click, they 
 watched him kiss the Bible and take the oath to that 
 Constitution whose interpretation was soon to be be 
 fore the final tribunal of the sword. 
 
 When he began to speak, the silence of his ad 
 herents was broken by the shouted assertions and 
 questions of his enemies, which would not have 
 ceased had he been an orator. But the age of ora 
 tory, when swelling sentences rose from swelling 
 chests ; when the agitator stormed and the time-server 
 compromised in rounded pauses; when sectional 
 hatred was inspired by bigoted speech for local polit 
 ical ends, had passed. This leader, a citizen, talked to 
 citizens. His gestures had not been studied before 
 hand in a Sumner s mirror; his thoughts were not 
 sprung from a lawyer s bow. His garb, his gauntness, 
 his awkwardness became the grace of personality, the 
 emblems of power; and the crowd without exception 
 listened not to an oration but to a talk from the heart 
 of the new President to the heart of the people, who 
 have always been wise when their servants have been 
 truthful. 
 
 "He s like a great peak," said the Vagabond to 
 the Captain. "Those that don t know it can t see for 
 the fog that hangs over the plains. The peak will not 
 dissolve in the mist. It still will be there, serene 
 and unchanged, when the sun has driven the fog 
 away; and then those who see it for the first time 
 will call themselves discoverers." 
 
 148 
 
xvn 
 
 MISS FELICIA AS AN AUNT 
 
 "Poor bumpkin !" The Vagabond kept repeating 
 her exclamation to get the weight of it, the while 
 he looked at his ready-made clothes. "He was sorry 
 enough, poor bumpkin! Don t let him hear you! 77 If 
 her remark had the sting of condescension, it had 
 also the evidence of a desire not to wound a stranger s 
 feelings any more than she would have kept the but 
 terfly a prisoner in other days. 
 
 Instead of being angry, on consideration he found 
 here a note in keeping with his conception of her 
 character. As far as man could well be from having 
 his dream fulfilled, he was nearer than he had been, 
 in that the essentials to make it true existed. For 
 his ideal was a reality that definitely lived and 
 moved. It was creditable, when desire to know her 
 better and desire to overcome the ill impression he 
 had made called him to her above all, creditable in 
 one who always expressed himself in action not to 
 seek precipitately another meeting. Washington was 
 no place for telling his story, he knew; the company 
 she had with her was in nowise fit to be listeners. She 
 must be alone the next time he saw her and again 
 he looked at his ready-made clothes, bought in a 
 hurry. What man could feel like a knight in them! 
 If he had been in a miner s shirt he was sure that he 
 
 149 
 
THE VAGABOND 
 
 would not have stepped on her gown, which, the more 
 he thought of it, deserved her censure. It is proper 
 enough to talk of the coat not making the man; but 
 the man, being made, is neglectful if his coat does 
 not fit. Father Bob showed a nice appreciation of 
 this in that he would not pay his call on General 
 Scott until he had a new uniform, and from him the 
 Vagabond had imbibed habits of neatness and a care 
 as to his personal appearance. 
 
 Anon, he told himself that clothes did not make 
 one awkward; a man could avoid that though he was 
 clad in a night-cap, linen duster, and miner s boots, if 
 and the ifs were rather against him. His garb set 
 on his limbs in the same awkward repression that 
 the crowds and the talk of place and preference at 
 Willard s between shots at the cuspidors set on his 
 spirit. It occurred to him that there was one thing 
 which, however unimportant it was in mine-finding 
 and mine-managing, might play a great part in win 
 ning a girl. He looked into the mirror in his room, 
 fearfully, questioningly. 
 
 "Those freckles are pretty nearly washed out," he 
 said; "but the eyes, damnation! They re fast dye, 
 like a china dolPs. The hair it isn t exactly red now, 
 or brown, either ! However, I m a pretty good moun 
 tain-climber, anyway, and one day I ll appear on the 
 Lanley plantation with the manner of a man who is 
 used to walking on carpets in a maze of trains." 
 With that, he laughed lightly; for he could not long 
 be solemn or introspective. 
 
 His readiness to leave Washington, his silence as 
 to the girl, led the Captain into the great error of 
 supposing that his ward who at that moment saw in 
 
 150 
 
THE VAGABOND 
 
 fancy a face framed in a bonnet had realized the 
 breadth of the Potomac River in 1861 and was al 
 ready quit of his folly. Therefore, he broke out mis 
 chievously in his joy with a nudge in the ribs and 
 "Girl!" which the Vagabond received with an "Oh, 
 yes!" of some satisfaction over the fact that evidently 
 the Captain had not recognized among the people in 
 the gallery the little Miss General of the Post. 
 
 Before the train which took them to Belmore came 
 to a stop, the Vagabond had a good view of the 
 Judge, standing on the platform, only a little more 
 changed than the old town itself. He had actually 
 given up the stock, supplanting it by a style of collar 
 five years out of date, and his girth was reaching pro 
 portions that were more indicative of judicial solidity 
 than of systematic exercise. His face, once older 
 than his age an illusion that had made him the 
 youngest judge the county had ever had was now 
 younger, being of the kind that sets its expression 
 early and is preserved by an even temper. The Vaga 
 bond leapt from the car-step with a boyish shout, and 
 before his uncle could resist he had his arms around 
 him in a press of affection that left the Bench with 
 little breath. They made a striking contrast, the 
 soft-tissued, book-loving office hermit and the lithe, 
 muscular, quick-moving youth. 
 
 "Now, sir," the Vagabond said, "I ll sit in the 
 court all day and I ll let you read law to me all night 
 to pay you for being the mean, ungrateful little beg 
 gar that I was. And here s Father Bob, only five or 
 six years younger than when you saw him last." 
 
 "Ten," prompted the Captain. "Well, sir, I 
 brought him back, didn t I? You were well rid of 
 
 151 
 
THE VAGABOND 
 
 him, Judge. He s a devil, sir, a devil. You d never 
 kept him in that law-office. Why, California isn t 
 big enough for him!" 
 
 The Judge, meanwhile surveying his nephew, was 
 a picture of serene family pride. He had treasured 
 this home-coming. 
 
 "And Miss Felicia? I thought she d be here, too 
 she d be with you! I didn t think it necessary to tele 
 graph to both." 
 
 "She s up at the house," said the Judge, "and so 
 far as I can comprehend a woman s motives, she will 
 probably not set the dog on us if we pay our re 
 spects." 
 
 "Miss Felicia!" said the Vagabond, wagging his 
 head. "Is it still Miss?" 
 
 "It is," was the stern response. 
 
 "Oh, uncle, uncle, uncle!" repeated the Vagabond; 
 while the Captain, determined that the teasing should 
 not be on one side, nudged him and said, "Girl!" 
 which the Judge misunderstood to the point of anger. 
 
 "Shall we go to Miss Hope s?" said he, in the man 
 ner of charging a jury. 
 
 They found the lady crocheting in the sitting-room. 
 Upon their entry she rose with a formal bow as if 
 she were receiving a bishop. 
 
 "Oh, you can t put me off with any prim good- 
 mornings!" the Vagabond cried, in ecstasy. "I m not 
 so modest as the Judge, dear aunt." 
 
 "Aunt?" exclaimed Miss Felicia. 
 
 Before she could protest farther, he had his arms 
 around her and had planted half a dozen kisses on 
 her cheeks, and finally her lips met his in a kind of 
 consenting pucker. The Captain was put out by this 
 
 152 
 
THE VAGABOND 
 
 impetuosity. He had been rehearsing for months 
 what he should say by way of introduction of his pro 
 tege to that lady who had questioned the ability of 
 an army officer to care for a boy s morals. He spoke 
 it now mechanically and not with that mock humility 
 he had promised himself. 
 
 "Yes, ma am, so please you, this is the barbarous, 
 uneducated savage I ve brought up." 
 
 "He quite justifies the compliment," Miss Felicia 
 confessed, while her eyes were bright with admira 
 tion for his positive manner, and two spots glowing 
 on her cheeks made her the despair of the cautious 
 Bench. 
 
 "Aunt, aunt aunt I shall always call you," the 
 Vagabond went on, holding her off at arms length, 
 "no matter how faint the judicial heart. You don t 
 know how fond I am of you since I ve thought you 
 over. Oh, but you haven t grown a day older ! I m 
 proud of being associated with such a good-looking 
 relative." With that, he kissed her again, while the 
 spots on her cheeks spread and the Judge changed 
 color and sighed. "I hope you forgive me for being 
 such an intractable boy. Just think how much I 
 wanted to climb that mountain! Do you forgive me?" 
 
 His grammar was good; his manner was not with 
 out distinction, she had to admit. 
 
 "I forgive myself," said Miss Felicia, "for insisting 
 on John s keeping you. It is very sweet of you to 
 think so much of an old maid." Tears sparkled in 
 her eyes. She wiped them away as if they were 
 wicked intruders. "Now, sir, let me look at you!" 
 She drew back a few feet and surveyed him critically. 
 "You re a pretty fair specimen of a young man and 
 
 153 
 
THE VAGABOND 
 
 you ve still enough freckles left for mischief/ she 
 added, with a courtesy that made her seem more 
 youthful ; a fact that did not escape the Bench, which 
 wiped its brow, helplessly. 
 
 She unbent more and more, until, besides being 
 mirthful, she developed underneath her prim exte 
 rior a dry wit that illumined her shrewdness as she 
 questioned him about his work. So encouraged was 
 the Judge by her good-humor that for the first time 
 in two years he formally came to the attack that 
 night in a most florid speech introduced by the happy 
 home-coming, which was refused in as few words as 
 usual. The next day he responded to his nephew s 
 badinage thus: 
 
 "There are conditions under which I should ac 
 cept it amiably; but under the present circumstances 
 it is a painful reminder of what might have been." 
 
 The Vagabond asked pardon and was the more 
 regretful that so fine a pair should be separated. In 
 deed, he turned match-maker. 
 
 "You must know some fine woman of thirty or so, 
 a widow, say," he went on. "Suppose you take her 
 out driving and to church and show her attentions 
 generally." 
 
 "Why?" asked the man of law, blandly. 
 
 "To win Aunt Aunt Felicia. She would resent 
 it, pretend not to care, and discover her own feelings. 
 Result, she would melt." 
 
 "I I couldn t do that," responded the man of 
 law. "Felicia is the only woman in Belmore in the 
 world, I may as well say that I know at all well. 
 She s the only one I can talk to. Why, on my word, 
 I wouldn t, know what to say to any other. I can t 
 
 154 
 
THE VAGABOND 
 
 talk about crinoline." Then he turned on the Vaga 
 bond with an indignation which is possible even in an 
 equable temperament: "I am a patient man, but, by 
 God Almighty, I resent this interference in my pri 
 vate affairs!" 
 
 "Not interference interest, please. However, 
 I wash my hands of you both, and I would no more 
 do anything to hurt you, uncle, than I would give 
 my mine to the first beggar I met on the street-corner. 
 Fm fond of you and of my aunt, and if you were 
 united, why, I could unite my affections." 
 
 Nevertheless, the first time he was alone with Miss 
 Felicia he led up to the wisdom, the natural logic 
 of a happy consummation in which he would be will 
 ing to be the best man. 
 
 "Where is your halter ?" Felicia asked, after listen 
 ing demurely, her lips twitching with amusement or 
 hauteur it was hard to tell which. 
 
 "My halter!" 
 
 "Yes. Did John pull it out of your hand when 
 you were leading him down the road?" 
 
 "No. I met him heart-broken by the wayside and 
 came to plead his cause." He drew a long face. 
 "Mine is not a grateful task. I undertake it only 
 because I am certain of my premises. I am certain 
 that at heart you love him!" 
 
 "Villain!" shrieked Felicia, because it was the first 
 word that came to her mind. "I don t! I don t!" 
 came over her shoulder, as she rushed out of the 
 room, closing the door. 
 
 When he opened it cautiously after a judicious in 
 terval he found her wildly dusting the piano for the 
 eixth time. 
 
 155 
 
THE VAGABOND 
 
 "You don t withdraw your invitation to supper, 
 do you, aunt?" he asked, humbly. 
 
 "It depends. I don t if you will never mention 
 that subject again, never, never!" 
 
 "Never, then; absolutely never, till I throw rice at 
 you!" he replied. 
 
 "Pooh!" responded Felicia. "I ll at least marry a 
 man that has a mind of his own. John! He s for 
 compromise. He says Greeley is carried away by 
 the power of his language to express radical views. 
 He s for something he doesn t know what he s 
 for something to please the slave-owners and save 
 the Union and make everybody as small as his con 
 science." 
 
 "Why, do you want him to agree with you on 
 everything and show he has a mind of his own in that 
 way?" 
 
 "No! No! I I want him to be reasonable!" she 
 fairly sputtered. 
 
xvin 
 
 HIS HORSE CASTS A SHOE 
 
 It befell that Miss Felicia and the Captain, for 
 merly of two opposite poles of thought the severely 
 civil, as a New England Indian sympathizer under 
 stood it, and the severely military, as an Indian 
 fighter understood it were in hearty accord. To 
 gether they read the Tribune, applauding its editor 
 ial passion, while the Judge gravely shook his head 
 over the news columns of the Times. If the South 
 erners wanted to rebel, let them rebel, said the Cap 
 tain; and then, ma am, let the United States put re 
 bellion down in the only way to put a rebellion 
 down shoot it down, ma am, shoot it down ! In dif 
 ferent words, Miss Felicia expressed the same opin 
 ion. Better, a thousand times, that blood should 
 flow, said she, than that a people should stultify their 
 consciences. 
 
 "The North and the South, entranced by their in 
 vective, are engaged in a mad contest of misrepre 
 sentation of each other," said the Judge. "I still 
 hope that reason will prevail." And he went back 
 to his library and looked at the portraits of Marshall 
 (Virginian) and Jefferson (Virginian), and shook his 
 head sadly and burrowed in his leather-bound books 
 for consolation. 
 
 157 
 
THE VAGABOND 
 
 To the Vagabond, the continual discussion stood 
 for that strange thing called politics, which had little 
 interest for him. When a Californian would take 
 to the trail, he thought, an Easterner takes to talk 
 ing. Soon his views were too well known to be fur 
 ther sought. 
 
 "I am willing to leave it to Abraham Lincoln," he 
 always said. 
 
 It was incomprehensible to his simple nature, en 
 tirely constructive, that either side should believe in 
 its verbiage so far as to try to destroy the other. 
 
 Meanwhile, he was preoccupied with something 
 of far more interest to him than politics of any 
 order. The girl s face flitted before his eyes be 
 fore he slept and upon waking. He found a new 
 pleasure in being alone, for then he was in her com 
 pany. The secession of States was to him, most of 
 all and worst of all, the heightening of the barrier 
 between them. Nothing about the crisis was so vex 
 atious to him as the tendency of everyone to make it 
 a personal matter. When the rest of the world was 
 asking, "Will Lincoln call for troops?" he was ask 
 ing, "Why shouldn t a girl love a man though he 
 come to her out of the enemy s land?" When the 
 rest of the world was asking, "Will Virginia secede?" 
 he was asking, "Do Virginia women have as strong 
 political prejudices as Aunt Felicia?" 
 
 His objects in postponing his visit to the Lanley 
 homestead were twofold. He waited upon the sub 
 sidence of the war excitement, when the curtain 
 should go down on the "riot of words" in a compro 
 mise ; and he wanted to be more sure of himself as a 
 dweller in the centres of civilization. The latter hur- 
 
 158 
 
THE VAGABOND 
 
 ried him to "New York while the Captain was on a 
 visit to an old major at the Post and Tim Booker was 
 still using the paint-brush dipped in red. A Broad 
 way tailor made him feel more at ease; he attended 
 to the manufacture of his machinery; and he had 
 the entree to certain houses whose formalities were 
 supposed to take off rough edges. 
 
 When the Captain rejoined him early in April, 
 Sumter lay under the Confederate guns, whose blast 
 might at any moment come as the foreword of war. 
 Even this news New York received with the bland- 
 ness of a reading public over-used to sensation. It 
 was the old cry of "Wolf ! wolf!" said mankind over 
 its morning papers in the horse-cars. The days wore 
 on, until the inevitable was as clear to the thought 
 ful as the outline of Trinity s steeple against the sky. 
 To one whose country had been his employer and 
 his passion, the attitude of the great city immured in 
 its own concerns seemed callous and heartless. 
 
 "The time has come for me to go to Washington 
 and tell General Scott that I am at his service," the 
 Captain declared. 
 
 It was not until they were on the train that the 
 Vagabond revealed that his own object in coming 
 was more than comradeship. 
 
 "I think I had better hurry up and call on the girl," 
 he said. 
 
 "What in the devil! What! What! I thought you 
 had got over that foolishness. Hm-m ! Still waters 
 run deep. I might have known you wouldn t, you ve 
 been so quiet about it." 
 
 "Well, what did you think of her? Or didn t you 
 recognize her? No, you didn t. You didn t know 
 
 159 
 
THE VAGABOND 
 
 that the girl whose gown I stepped on was one and 
 the same with little Miss General!" 
 
 Recollection was quick enough with the Captain 
 now. He laughed at himself as a stupid old bachelor, 
 who ought !: have known her by the mole on her 
 chin, if in no other way. Then he realized that her 
 beauty only added to the difficulties. 
 
 "You are actually going down to her place to call 
 on her?" he asked. 
 
 "Why, of course, Father Bob." 
 
 "Expect me to go along to introduce you, eh?" 
 
 "No. I wouldn t have you for worlds. Two is 
 company." 
 
 "Do you expect she will recognize you?" 
 
 "No. If she should, it might spoil the point of 
 my story." 
 
 The Captain s vexation was growing under the 
 spur of the Vagabond s airy responses. 
 
 "I thought you d be like this if you ever got in 
 love," he said. "Are you telling her yes, sir, are 
 you going to tell her you are in love ?" 
 
 "If I have the great privilege of being alone with 
 her, I think I d better ; for it will be my only chance 
 for some time if there s a war." 
 
 "How in the devil!" whispered the Captain, 
 hoarsely. "Don t you know she hates a Yankee like 
 poison? Where s your self-respect? Don t you know 
 she ll make all kinds of fun of you? Her grand- 
 father ll take his cane to you. Yes, sir, more likely 
 he ll take his pistol. Where s your self-respect? Do 
 you want to turn yourself into a circus into a 
 booby you, a man of means and position, sir and 
 position, sir going hat in hand where you re not 
 wanted?" 
 
 160 
 
THE VAGABOND 
 
 "You make it more interesting than I supposed* 
 If it weren t for surprises the world would be exceed 
 ingly dull, Father Bob." 
 
 "Confound you, sir! Did I bring you up to act 
 like this?" the Captain sputtered. "What excuse 
 have you got to offer? Going to say ? I dreamed I 
 loved you, Miss; will you name the day? Going to 
 pass yourself off as a pedler?" 
 
 "I hadn t thought of that. It s not so bad. Still, 
 I think I have a better way." 
 
 "Well, all I ve got to say is that when a man s 
 bound to make a fool of himself, why, push him 
 along and have the agony over. Go ahead! go 
 ahead!" 
 
 The Captain turned and looked out of the window 
 in his huff, and the Vagabond, leaning toward him, 
 put his hand ever so gently on his shoulder and said, 
 softly and consolingly: 
 
 "I m sorry not to take you. Maybe I can next 
 time." 
 
 "Now you re poking fun at me trying to make 
 out I m jealous, by the Eternal! Well, there s no use 
 of wasting words. I ll have my joke on you when you 
 come back." He slapped his protege s knee and 
 called him a villain that kind of a villain which in 
 dicates fondness. 
 
 ; The national peril was on every tongue as the 
 Captain and the Vagabond passed through the 
 streets of Washington, where the different provincial 
 streams from States and districts make a political city 
 in the dullest of times. At Willard s, where they 
 dined, waiters worked their way through the gestures 
 of disputants and prophets. The Captain met an- 
 
 161 
 
THE VAGABOND 
 
 other veteran, who shared his table. They got on 
 swimmingly as long as they were inquiring after the 
 health of various comrades; but when it came to 
 secession, the other veteran was for compromise, 
 while the Captain, with a thunderous "By G , sir !" 
 declared that the only way to put a rebellion down 
 was to shoot it down, sir. 
 
 While they argued, the Vagabond was despatching 
 his meal and counting the minutes to a purpose. 
 When he rose and said that he was going to catch 
 the train to Alexandria, which was a little nearer 
 than Washington to a certain plantation, the Captain 
 went with him to the door of the dining-room (where 
 the least concerned of all present about the fate of 
 his race, the black head-waiter, raised a walking-beam 
 arm to usher in the guests) and seized the Vagabond 
 by the lapel of his coat. The discussion and the ex 
 citement had warmed his blood and his partisanship 
 and given birth to an apprehension. 
 
 "Look here, sir," he said, "suppose there is war, 
 what are you going to do ?" 
 
 "Seems to me that s before we come to the bridge. 
 Honestly, I haven t thought of it. I m leaving my 
 part of it to Lincoln, I repeat. Of one thing I m 
 sure: I d rather climb a mountain than go to war, 
 and just now I d rather go to see the girl than either." 
 
 This seemed to the old man very much like evasion. 
 He had a vision of this care-free youth, with his ideas 
 of chivalry, carried away by the cause of the South 
 and the guile of a woman s beauty. 
 
 "I said suppose, sir, suppose!" 
 
 "Why, what should I be doing except keeping step 
 with you, Father Bob? I must hurry. I ll be with 
 
 162 
 
THE VAGABOND 
 
 you to-morrow or the day after, at the latest. It s 
 not a long story!" he called back, as he hastened out. 
 
 In his imagination, the Captain put terrible re 
 sponsibilities on the head of Miss Lanley. He began 
 to regard his ward as an enigma, and he blamed him 
 self for running the risk of bringing him East and 
 possibly changing his nature from simplicity to com 
 plexity; for the fact that a man who had fought at 
 Lundy s Lane counselled compromise had made the 
 world awry. On his approach to his table he saw 
 the veteran stiffening to renew the conflict, and he 
 himself stiffened and thought that if the boy came 
 to believe in the other side, then, in all justice to his 
 own conscience, he must fight as he believed and his 
 adopted father would do the same. 
 
 As for the Vagabond, before he retired for the 
 night he had visited a livery-stable, where he had 
 not chosen a horse for a few hours journey until he 
 had examined the hoofs of several. 
 
 So it came to pass that at dawn the next day he was 
 riding along a Virginia highway upon the errand 
 which has taken more than one knight, with a bold 
 heart beneath his breast-plate and a restless brain un 
 der his helmet, into the enemy s country. He en 
 tertained no conception of his journey as Quixotic. 
 Did the good Don of blessed memory ever think of 
 himself as being so? If folly did not seem the reason 
 able thing to its perpetrators, there would be little 
 romance in the world. 
 
 No miser could have counted his day s gains with 
 more pleasure than our hero found in the sheer de 
 light of living. From his saddle he looked out upon 
 the oldest of the colonies in the spring-time. A week s 
 
 163 
 
THE VAGABOND 
 
 sunshine had dried the mud. The foliage was freshly 
 unfolded and the dry air seemed to sing in his nos 
 trils, the while anticipation sang in his heart. He 
 was going to see a girl just a girl I whose face he 
 knew but who did not know him; a girl who would 
 naturally regard him as a hated outlander. He was 
 not framing the words he would use, but was content, 
 in his appreciation of the diversion of any surprise, 
 to leave the details to the event s making a square- 
 shouldered, clear-eyed traveller with a boy s heart, 
 an honest man s candor, and a vagabond s humor that 
 makes courage seem a part of the play. His was 
 more than the glorious illusion of youth; he had a 
 way of making his dreams come true. 
 
 The directions how to reach his destination met 
 all the demands of poetic justice for such an enter 
 prise. He was told that he need only keep on until he 
 came to the great house, for there was none other on 
 the road. When it seemed to him, as he reckoned 
 distance, that he must be near his goal, the low tu 
 mult of horses hoofs broke the silence. He looked 
 across the fields to see a man and a woman mounted 
 approaching a fence at the gallop. The woman led, 
 and she took it first, clearing it by a wider space than 
 the man. This was a spectacle quite new to the Vaga 
 bond. 
 
 "That s something like ! That s my kind of a girl !" 
 he thought; and he had the impulse to try a fence 
 himself, then and there. 
 
 Keeping up their furious pace, the man becoming 
 a worse and worse second, the riders soon disap 
 peared from view. When he reached the rising 
 ground that had hidden them, they were just passing 
 
 164 
 
THE VAGABOND 
 
 under the trees which held the Lanley house in se 
 clusion. Then he berated his dull perception and 
 congratulated himself at the same time. 
 
 "Of course it s she!" he informed himself, glee 
 fully. "If I had a good horse she wouldn t have to 
 wait so long." 
 
 It was well that he did not have a good horse, else 
 he would have been face to face with an amazed 
 young woman without any excuse for his presence; 
 and he had nursed that excuse carefully. As it was, 
 he kept his pace until he was opposite the drive and 
 completely hidden from the house. Having dis 
 mounted for a moment and secured himself as the 
 most reasonable of callers, he proceeded up the drive 
 way, bearing his sesame in his whip-hand. 
 
 When the foliage no longer screened it, he saw 
 that a group on the porch was composed solely of Mr. 
 Lanley, Mrs. Bulwer and her son, who had been 
 Volilla s companion on the ride. This did not dis 
 may him so far as she of his heart s desire was con 
 cerned, for he took it for granted that she had gone 
 to change her gown. The others, however, were in 
 the way; indeed, the story might not be told at all 
 in their presence. 
 
 At sight of a stranger, the old man rose, bowed, 
 and bade him a most hospitable good-morning. 
 
 "I find myself in something of a predicament," the 
 Vagabond said. "My horse has cast a shoe; and 
 rather than lame him, I am going to ask your smith 
 to set it" 
 
 165 
 
XTX 
 
 THE SHADOW OF WAR 
 
 "Certainly, sir," said Mr. Lanley. "Under the cir 
 cumstances I should feel that you had done very ill 
 indeed if you had not stopped. You will rest, and we 
 shall have your company, sir, in the meanwhile." 
 
 "I seem to have a wise horse, in that he chose so hos 
 pitable a neighborhood for the accident," the guest re 
 marked, as he dismounted. 
 
 It did not occur to Mr. Lanley to give his own name, 
 for he could not conceive of anybody getting so far 
 into Virginia without knowing it. 
 
 "I take it that you are a stranger, sir," he suggested, 
 as he led the way up the steps. 
 
 "I beg your pardon, yes. My name is Williams, 
 and I am from California." 
 
 Affably and simply, yet without any suggestion in 
 manner that their association would be more than 
 temporary, Mr. Lanley introduced the new-comer to 
 Mrs. Bulwer and her son. We have already seen the 
 portraits of these two as they appeared in the Senate 
 gallery on the day of the inauguration. It is high 
 time that we should know more of them. Mrs. Bul 
 wer, strictly Virginian, was an aunt who had taken 
 the place of a mother to Volilla. When the new mis 
 tress of Lanleyton had arrived, Richard was away at 
 West Point. His letters were the stars of his moth- 
 
 166 
 
THE VAGABOND 
 
 er s night; his home-comings her only season of day 
 light. Her increasing age at length had led him to re 
 sign from his beloved artillery to take charge of the 
 plantation, which sadly needed a master. Thus the 
 family group was complete an elderly brother and 
 sister and two young cousins separated only by the 
 two miles that lay between their houses. Eichard 
 came to Lanleyton every day when Yolilla was not 
 with her aunt, and every day witnessed such a dashing 
 return from a ride as had whipped the blood in the 
 Vagabond s veins on his approach. Her horse was 
 one piece of extravagance, one proof of his adoration, 
 for which the grandfather was forgiven^ with soft 
 arms encircling his neck. In the spring of 59 he re 
 turned from a visit to Eichmond with a thorough-bred 
 that he had bought after spirited bidding over the head 
 of a wealthy tobacco merchant. 
 
 "Not a word as to the price, my dear," he begged. 
 "It s fit that the finest girl in Virginia a girl who 
 knows how to ride should have the finest horse in 
 Virginia. "Would to God that my bones were twenty 
 years younger and I had one like him to keep you 
 company! Pooh! Pd show Eichard how to take a 
 six-barred gate!" 
 
 She made the hunter the more cherished by christ 
 ening him "Folly." The comment ran that if Folly 
 were ill, his mistress was ; if lame, she did not sleep for 
 worrying. He took the place of winters in Eichmond 
 and Washington and of a tour abroad, which had once 
 been an indispensable part of a Lanley s education. 
 
 Of the lady who rode Folly, Eichard had once 
 given, in a bantering rally, this judicial opinion: 
 
 "You have a skittish humor that does not balk at 
 167 
 
THE VAGABOND 
 
 the unusual," he told her. "You have all the loyalty 
 of a Scotsman to his clan. Your love of out-door sports 
 is a masculine delight. You are deeper than you 
 think, as a crisis might show, and you are always 
 charming always, even when you are prejudiced." 
 
 "So you say! And your pulse never varies, dear 
 Richard/ 7 she replied. "If a mine should explode in 
 the yard this minute, you would calmly brush the dust 
 from your clothes and estimate the amount of powder 
 in the charge. You are so eminently just that you 
 would sentence yourself to jail, mention all mitigat 
 ing circumstances, and bail yourself out, in the full 
 consciousness of having done a friend a favor. There s 
 nothing you need so much as a little prejudice to 
 give you seasoning. Besides, if you had as fast a 
 horse as I have, you d have a different set of opin 
 ions." 
 
 ."Whatever miserable half -hours Bulwer may have 
 had in his own room when he looked in the depths of 
 his heart and realized what was fastened there, in her 
 presence he never allowed his feelings to exceed mere 
 cousinly camaraderie. He was her big chum, a privi 
 lege not to be risked lightly; her big chum he pro 
 posed to remain. 
 
 Not so Lieutenant Jefferson Southbridge, another 
 frequent visitor to Lanleyton, who was stationed in 
 "Washington. Southbridge was born for a sensational 
 existence. The regularity of army life in time of 
 peace only conserved an energy which would break 
 forth the more violently when opportunity came. You 
 must turn to his ancestors for a shadowy explanation 
 of this Puritan and cavalier in one ; this gay and pro 
 digiously solemn, this reckless and dramatically ear- 
 
 168 
 
THE VAGABOND 
 
 nest, this austere and vain, over-dressed young man, 
 who read his Bible diligently and thrummed Spanish 
 tunes on a guitar. His mother had been the daughter 
 of a rigidly orthodox, sourly priggish pastor; his fath 
 er, the over-wild son of a wild, hard-drinking, grace 
 fully swearing planter, the pair making a sensational 
 runaway match. In after years the father had turned 
 to religion, and the mother had become a famous gos 
 sip and married flirt in Richmond, whose weakness 
 was over-dress, and who died from exposing herself 
 in a ball-gown. 
 
 Southbridge s heart was no sooner affected than he 
 laid it all palpitating on his sleeve for my lady to look 
 at. Rebuffs were no more to his impetuous soul than 
 the mile-stones on a journey. He had proposed to Vo- 
 lilla half a dozen times and he was bound to keep on 
 proposing. On the morning that the Vagabond rode 
 up the drive at Lanleyton, the dislike of a third person 
 in the party was not the sole cause that restrained 
 him from joining Richard and Volilla in their dash 
 across the fields. For weeks past he had been going 
 at once gayly and devoutly to war for a principle, and 
 this morning he had ridden to the railroad station for 
 the latest news from Charleston. 
 
 The Vagabond, from the moment that he noted the 
 absence of the one person whom he had come to see, 
 was in the sway of a great fear. Suppose that she did 
 not appear at all? Could he ask for her? Only on 
 the ground that he had known her when he was a boy, 
 and that was more than making confession. It was 
 taking the key-stone and the base-stones out of his 
 plan, which was, first, to know if she would recognize 
 him, and, second, once old acquaintance was remem- 
 
 169 
 
THE VAGABOND 
 
 bered, to tell his story with only one pair of ears in 
 hearing. 
 
 "From California? Keally!" said Mrs. Bulwer. 
 "Did you look for gold?" 
 
 "Yes, and found a little/ he replied, smiling. 
 
 Mrs. Bulwer was gently sceptical as well as curious. 
 Her idea of miners had been of "pardners" in sombre 
 ros and open-throated shirts and high boots, as pict 
 ured in the few wood-cuts of contemporary life which 
 then carried information and misinformation to the 
 four corners of the earth. 
 
 "How does California stand on the question of se 
 cession?" Mr. Lanley asked. 
 
 "As a rule, the Calif ornians I know are for the 
 Union," was the reply. 
 
 Mr. Lanley lowered his iron-gray brows angrily; 
 his black eyes snapped. He started as if to make a 
 vehement denial. But he was a host, a Virginia host. 
 
 "Oh, indeed, sir !" he said, politely if pointedly. 
 
 "I knew several army officers who were in Califor 
 nia," Bulwer interjected, diplomatically. "One was 
 Captain Bob Herrick, an old fellow whom I saw a lot 
 of in Mexico. I heard that he adopted a runaway boy. 
 I could quite imagine him doing such a thing. He 
 was splendid, splendid!" 
 
 "Oh, yes. I ve seen him a number of times." 
 
 This was what the Vagabond said, resisting tempta 
 tion. He appreciated how easy it would be by defin 
 ing his relations to the Captain exactly and mention 
 ing a certain army post to make himself a guest long 
 enough to assure a meeting with the one whom he had 
 come to see. But he refused to play his fancy false. 
 He did not want to be introduced or explained to her. 
 
 170 
 
THE VAGABOND 
 
 He must come to her on this first occasion literally out 
 of the blue. 
 
 "And did he do well, he and the boy? Tell me 
 more about him splendid old Bob Herrick!" 
 
 Even Mrs. Bulwer elevated her brows to find her 
 placid son so adjectively enthusiastic about anything. 
 
 "Very both he and the boy/ was the response. 
 "He is in Washington now, waiting on the orders of 
 General Scott in case the country needs his services." 
 
 While he spoke the Vagabond was looking toward 
 the stable, fearing the approach of his horse and pray 
 ing that the smith would be dilatory. 
 
 "Oh, he is!" Bulwer answered, thoughtfully. 
 
 "It is scarcely comprehensible, yet it is true," Mr. 
 Lanley put in, savagely, "that General Scott, now 
 arming an invading force against us, is a Virginian; 
 yes, a Virginian, sir!" 
 
 "That is true," said the Vagabond, realizing how 
 differently a piece of information sounded on the 
 southern side of the Potomac. "Judging by the vigor 
 ous manner in which two riders disappeared under 
 your trees there as I came in sight of the house, it is 
 a proud thing to have been born in Virginia." 
 
 "Volilla! Ah, you saw Volilla on Folly!" ex 
 claimed Mr. Lanley, politics all forgotten, the gouty 
 twinge passing, the very mention of his idol being like 
 the bouquet of a vintage to an epicurean nostril. 
 
 There was a rustle of skirts in the hall, which bore 
 sweeter message than the courier from a victorious 
 field to an emperor s ears. The Vagabond s journey 
 was not in vain; he was not to be cheated of his object. 
 She stood before him. His faculties were superbly 
 acute, yet benumbed as by the pricking of thousands 
 
 171 
 
THE VAGABOND 
 
 of joyful needles. Men falling great distances are said 
 to have supernatural facility of sight and thought; 
 why should not those rising to heaven in the moment 
 long dreamed of and conjured with? For the first 
 time since he had crossed his heart and hoped to die 
 that he would not rob birds nests, he was face to face 
 and speaking with the realized image of his fancy. 
 Every detail of the glowing picture in the frame of 
 the doorway charmed his senses as he rose from his 
 seat. She had changed her gown for one that showed 
 the house, the soft, the feminine side of her nature, 
 even as the riding-habit showed the healthy, the dar 
 ing, the romping, the free, the buoyant side. At 
 home ehe had dared to disregard the outlandish coif 
 fure of the time. A big braid doubled in at the back 
 took its place. Abundantly, with the sheen and color 
 of the chestnut fresh from the burr, her hair rose from 
 the temples in a crest that played with the soft sun 
 light as a royal mate. In the Senate gallery her 
 beauty had been stricken as a painting may be with 
 an unsuitable frame. Here it was free and natural, 
 from brow to open-throated gown. 
 
 He heard Mr. Lanley saying, "My granddaughter" 
 and "Mr. Williams, of California," etc. He had 
 no illusions that he was anything more. His face, he 
 realized in swift definiteness, had called to her mem 
 ory no incident of a meeting with an odd little boy on 
 the bank of a New England creek. 
 
 As the touch of her fingers to his in their stereo 
 typed greeting went thrilling to his head, he wished 
 for nothing so much as that three or four superfluous 
 persons might be transported out of sight and hear 
 ing. He was in the flood of a mood to make eloquent 
 
 172 
 
THE VAGABOND 
 
 that story which he had to tell her. But the company 
 was to be increased rather than diminished. All had 
 turned to look in the direction of the road whence 
 came the sound of a horseman approaching at the 
 gallop. 
 
 "Southbridge, of course/ said Bulwer. "I fancy 
 he has big news." 
 
 The garb of no Californian could be more ridiculous 
 to a Virginian than that of the man who burst from 
 under the trees was to the Vagabond. He wore a 
 large blue sash, falling from his waist in tasselled 
 ends, high cavalry-man s boots, a gray uniform glit 
 tering with brass buttons, while he swung over his 
 head a soft hat surmounted by a long ostrich plume. 
 
 "It s begun! It s begun! We re bombarding 
 Sumter!" he shouted. 
 
 "Glorious! glorious!" Volilla cried, gliding past the 
 others to the steps. 
 
 "High time!" growled Mr. Lanley, who had long 
 ago worn out his enthusiasm in disgust over the dila- 
 toriness of his State. 
 
 Bulwer said nothing. 
 
 Southbridge threw himself from the saddle with a 
 cavalry-man s abandon. He raised his hat again. 
 
 "I told you I d bring the news first," he said. 
 "What do you think of my new uniform? I ve had it 
 ready for a month, and I stopped only long enough at 
 Leggat s to put it on. These spurs" he turned a heel 
 to show them "are old Spanish and solid silver. I m 
 going to organize five companies of cavalry, so I m a 
 colonel now Colonel of the Virginia Firsts, if you 
 please, ladies and gentlemen." He bowed again. 
 
 "Bravo!" cried Volilla, not with respect to his garb, 
 173 
 
THE VAGABOND 
 
 but for his enthusiasm for the cause. "I have some 
 thing for you a reward." With that she hastened 
 back into the house. 
 
 At first glance it was difficult to know whether 
 Southbridge took himself seriously or not. The flash 
 of his eye when he saw the stranger s lips twitching 
 with amusement was proof that he did. Quick in his 
 likes and dislikes, from that moment he counted the 
 Vagabond an enemy. 
 
 No one could deny that the man s musketeer garb 
 became him. He was uncommonly tall, with a 
 straight nose, black, curling hair, and a full, wavy 
 beard which did not belie his youth but rather im 
 pressed it upon the beholder. His face had the con 
 trast to Bulwer s of sensation to moderation. Bulwer 
 had the Lanley nose, with the thin, high cartilage 
 bending with a thorough-bred curve to the finely chis 
 elled nostrils. His full forehead, his square yet well- 
 rounded chin, his reposeful mouth every feature 
 was lacking in the extravagance which accentuated 
 the features of the younger officer. 
 
 "Are you going to carry that guitar of yours slung 
 over your back when you make a charge, Jefferson?" 
 asked Bulwer, pleasantly. 
 
 "If you join my command I shall need a little mu 
 sic to offset that solemn face of yours." 
 
 Volilla now reappeared in the door-way in smiling 
 triumph as she shook out the folds of a silk State flag, 
 whose floating end fell about Southbridge s feet. 
 
 "I made it with my own hands, and I ll embroider 
 it with the name of the Virginia Firsts the first Vir 
 ginians to draw the sword for our rights/ she said. 
 
 Southbridge swept the floor of the porch with his 
 174 
 
THE VAGABOND 
 
 plume, his other hand on his heart, and bowed as low 
 as his waist. 
 
 "God is with us," he said. "With His blessing, 
 with right on our side, the sons of Virginia will send 
 the whining Yankees back to their shops. Aye, with 
 my own hand I will raise this flag on the Capitol at 
 Washington, where, in a month s time, we shall dic 
 tate our terms of peace." 
 
 The Vagabond was not looking at the man but at 
 the girl, whose face, lighted with purpose and enthu 
 siasm, fascinated him. For the first but by no means 
 the last time, he found himself wishing that he might 
 meet Southbridge on the edge of a precipice; for al 
 ready he had begun to realize that back of this strange 
 man s vainglory and boasting there was the genuine 
 ability which makes enmity worth while. 
 
 Having laid the flag over a chair caressingly, with 
 words of admiration for the needle-work, the plumed 
 messenger turned toward his rival in sarcasm as 
 pointed as the ends of his mustache. 
 
 "Well, Bulwer, are you for Virginia or against 
 her? You can t be a peace-at-any-price man much 
 longer." 
 
 "I don t see anything to shout over in the prospect 
 of shooting at the officers I have fought with and at 
 the flag I have fought under," Bulwer replied, good- 
 humoredly. "Still, when it comes to war, I may lay 
 on as heavy blows as you. And we shall need heavy 
 blows. We shall not be in Washington in a month; 
 oh, not in a month, Jefferson." 
 
 "Cousin, did our forefathers wait?" Volilla had 
 stepped nearer to Bulwer and she spoke passionately. 
 "Did sentiment forever attach them to the British 
 
 175 
 
THE VAGABOND 
 
 flag when they were wronged under it? Didn t they 
 go to their work with a cheer and a whole heart? 
 Come, you are a Virginian !" 
 
 "Yes, so you should go once you start. Perhaps if 
 you had been a foreign attache as I have and knew 
 as I do that Europe would like nothing better than to 
 see us split up into tribes like the Indians, you might 
 regard it as a necessity but not as a source of joy that 
 the United States should be cut in two. My State has 
 paid its share toward my education at West Point and 
 toward maintaining me in the army. It played the 
 greatest part of all the colonies in winning for each 
 one its freedom. Now it must fight again, not against 
 a king but against a Northern majority who would 
 make us a minority withcmt representation. The 
 Southern clime wants only to keep its sunlight, as it 
 ever has. The North will be the invader. When the 
 first Union soldier sets foot on the soil of Virginia, 
 then every Virginian with a drop of red blood in his 
 veins must resist or hold out his hand to the burglar 
 that is climbing in at his window." 
 
 "Good, good! I knew you would!" She sat down 
 on the arm of his chair in a most cousinly fashion. 
 "I ll make a flag for you and bind it with gold cord 
 and embroider something on it about the rejoicing 
 over the one sinner who repenteth." 
 
 Only such news as Southbridge had brought, only 
 such a crisis, could have made the actors in this scene 
 so oblivious to the presence of a stranger. The Vaga 
 bond realized into what a different world a few hours 
 ride might take a traveller in his own country. To 
 them the North was a monster, stealing the fire from 
 their hearth-stones, the meat from their larders. Mr. 
 
 176 
 
THE VAGABOND 
 
 Lanley, the more so in that he had tried spasmodically 
 to mend his extravagant ways, blamed his bankruptcy 
 on the Government rather than on economic change. 
 Yolilla, now aware of their straits, had come into 
 womanhood with an intensity of affection for all the 
 acres and buildings that were the Lanleys own, not ex 
 ceeded by the founder of the house. It was she who 
 turned to the Vagabond, aflame with patriotism, and 
 bending toward him in a transport of interest and 
 anxiety as to his answer to the question, asked: 
 
 "How is California going, sir? With us?" 
 
 "No, I think it is for the Union." 
 
 She stiffened in amazement. There was scepticism 
 of the truth of his reply in the changed expression of 
 her eyes, though she did not give it word. 
 
 "Indeed! And how do you stand?" 
 
 In his disgust, Southbridge was guilty of pressing a 
 stranger with this direct question. 
 
 For the first time, the Vagabond had a partisan 
 view of the impending conflict. He had only to look 
 at Volilla to know that a word could make her a friend 
 or an enemy. As an ally, he had a footing; as an ad 
 versary, the Potomac was as broad as the Milky Way. 
 He felt that he would be grime under her feet if he 
 dodged the issue; he felt, too, a pleasure in giving 
 Southbridge a clear answer ; a pleasure, also, in rais 
 ing another obstacle which it would be his delight to 
 overcome. 
 
 "I only wish," he said, "that there was a mountain 
 so high that from it you could see from the Atlantic to 
 the Pacific, and that every man and woman in the 
 United States, both North and South, could get out 
 of the dust of township roads and the mists of low- 
 
 in 
 
THE VAGABOND 
 
 lands and climb to the summit and see how nature 
 has bounded our country by seas and rivers and lakes 
 and meant it to be one and undivided." 
 
 "Aye, aye!" said Bulwer. 
 
 "I only wish that, condoning each other s faults, 
 the South could know the North and the North could 
 know the South as brothers and partners should know 
 each other." 
 
 "So do I wish it!" Bulwer had lifted himself in 
 his chair. His fine, calm face was alight with the ab 
 straction of the Vagabond s idea, and the glances of 
 the two men met in the steady gaze of mutual under 
 standing and admiration. 
 
 a Bah!" Southbridge tossed the word out con 
 temptuously. "Weep awhile, Dicky." 
 
 "Yes, I have only to look at you, Jefferson," Bul 
 wer continued, "to know how -impossible is our 
 dream." 
 
 Southbridge made a movement toward Bulwer; 
 but Bulwer, falling back into his easy attitude, only 
 smiled masterfully. 
 
 "I had not finished," the Vagabond ventured. "I 
 wish to say that if war is to come, I am for the Union 
 with all my heart." 
 
 His little speech was followed by a moment s burst 
 ing silence ; and if Bulwer had not supplied the word 
 to prick it, the coming of a horse from the stable 
 would. With a flattering glance he regarded the 
 firm chin of the Vagabond and the erect torso 
 poised on the edge of the chair, and said lightly to 
 Southbridge: 
 
 "You see, Jefferson, as I have always maintained, 
 we shall find enemies worthy of our steel." 
 
 ITS 
 
THE VAGABOND 
 
 "To spit on it!" rejoined Southbridge, hotly. 
 
 "Gentlemen! gentlemen!" Mr. Lanley could never 
 allow his prejudices to usurp his hospitality. "Each 
 for his side, and settle your arguments in the field and 
 not on the porch. Mr. Williams, you are to be praised 
 for your candor." 
 
 "Yes, and whatever else this war between fellow- 
 countrymen is to be, it ought to be impersonal," Bul- 
 wer added. 
 
 Meanwhile the Vagabond had not ceased to watch 
 the play of emotion on Volilla s face. Her expression 
 was one of incomprehension of how anyone who 
 seemed fair-minded and fair-spoken should take the 
 side of the North. When he heard hoofs crunch 
 ing on the gravel it was a signal which, in the 
 strained situation, he could not well disregard. He 
 had it in mind to ask her to recall the small boy who 
 once caught a butterfly for her, but his old aversion to 
 any except a fair opportunity, when he should tell his 
 whole story, prevailed. While two emblems of re 
 strained indignation flamed on her cheek, she took his 
 hand, smiling dutifully as a hostess. 
 
 "A pleasant journey!" she said. 
 
 "You say that to an enemy!" he exclaimed, lightly. 
 
 "When he is going out of Virginia; a short and an 
 unpleasant one to the invader." 
 
 Her reply gave him pleasure. It was still another 
 proof that the girl of his fancy grown woman was 
 worthy of his conception. He knew nothing in the 
 world so well at that moment as that he loved her. 
 
 Finally, when he had paid his respects to Mrs. Bul- 
 wer and expressed his thanks to all for their tolerance 
 for an adversary as well as their direct kindness to him, 
 
 179 
 
THE VAGABOND 
 
 he offered his hand to Southbridge, who had been 
 standing by, silent and lowering, pulling at his mus 
 tache and fondly regarding its silken ends with down 
 ward glances. 
 
 "Ceremonies are unnecessary, sir," he growled. 
 
 "I thought you liked them." The Vagabond could 
 not resist the goad, and he continued to smile as he 
 spoke. 
 
 Southbridge raised his glove as if he would strike 
 the Northerner in the face, but lowered it and turned 
 on his heel. 
 
 "I trust that we shall meet again where there are 
 no ladies present," he called, after the Vagabond was 
 mounted. 
 
 "My dear sir, if we do I assure you that I shall not 
 be frightened away by the waving of your plume or 
 the jingling of your spurs." 
 
 On his way back to Alexandria the Vagabond both 
 smiled and scowled. He smiled broadly over South- 
 bridge s uniform ; he smiled raptly over new obstacles, 
 having nothing to do with a mine, a mountain, or war, 
 which he must overcome; he scowled over the ameni 
 ties of sectionalism that might influence purely per 
 sonal relations. 
 
 "I shall see her again soon," he said, and tossed his 
 head and whistled. 
 
 180 
 
xx 
 
 WITH EVEEY MAN S DUTY PLAIN 
 
 A set speech by the Judge always mustered all the 
 devotees of oratory within the radius of a day s com 
 fortable drive. His subject on this Tuesday follow 
 ing the fall of Sumter was a magnet no less than 
 curiosity to know how the leading Democrat and most 
 popular citizen of the county stood on the issue that 
 a cannon-shot had precipitated. To all men, though 
 they had talked for months of the eventuality, the 
 news came as a family disaster that should be dis 
 cussed in family council, in the court-house square; 
 for the town-meeting instinct was still strong in the 
 land. 
 
 So they came charging "On to Richmond" as fast 
 as their horses could bring them ; more than one sheep 
 ish-looking fellow with a woman in the buggy beside 
 him who, willy nilly, was going to see that her hus 
 band, brother, or son did not enlist. Never in all the 
 times that the Judge had stood on the stone steps had 
 he been so rhetorical or so eloquent in his convincing 
 loyalty to the flag as in his bold front to any man or 
 set of men who fired on it. He had the audience at a 
 fever heat of palpitation. The sentences of his per 
 oration were following one another in rhythmic poise, 
 when suddenly he paused, as if memory were at fault 
 
 181 
 
THE VAGABOND 
 
 or he was transfixed by some thought not rehearsed in 
 his study, and then continued in a conversational tone 
 of rare force, addressed to each hearer, personally: 
 
 "We have no regular army of account. Our fore 
 fathers fought for a country not to be ruled by bayo 
 nets, uniforms, or a privileged class. On that stake, 
 "Washington, the richest man in America, risked his 
 all. They gave each of us an equal proprietary right 
 in the Government which individual success or influ 
 ence could not assault. If this experiment among na 
 tions was endangered, they depended upon the virile 
 manhood and the moral gratitude and appreciative 
 self-respect of the citizen to fly to its defence. The 
 hour of peril is here. The hour is here when every 
 man, however rich, however poor, must follow the 
 example of Washington ; when he must leave the com 
 forts and the benefices that the sacrifices of his sires 
 assured and place his life at the call of that flag 
 which embodies his sacred privilege and the united 
 people whose power can alone protect it; land-owner 
 shoulder to shoulder with tenant, scholar with the un 
 lettered, in the common cause which is of vital per 
 sonal interest to each of us; otherwise, we are un 
 worthy of our heritage." 
 
 His words were so sharp, his manner so mandatory, 
 his feeling so intense, that the hush of thoughtfulness 
 took the place of a cheer, except for one drunken man, 
 Hosea Pillsbury by name, swaying on the outskirts 
 of the crowd, who called in a thick voice: 
 
 "Shooray, Jedge! Pratish what you preesh! You 
 got no fam lysh; why donYsh you listsh? "Why 
 don t you go fightsh for your country yourself sh? 
 Ha! ha! Joksh!" 
 
 182 
 
THE VAGABOND 
 
 Some of the audience hissed- the features of others 
 worked in a suppressed smile. All were amazed to 
 find the smartest man in the county at a loss for a re 
 ply. When finally it came, it was spoken pleasantly, 
 sweetly : 
 
 "Such is the republic/ he said, "that even a drunk 
 en man may show a sober man his duty. Thank you, 
 my friend. I shall enlist." 
 
 The crowd made a path for him in wonder as he 
 walked not to the enrolling officer of the infantry 
 company, but to him of the First Belmore Cavalry, 
 whose captain was the Vagabond; first lieutenant, 
 Jimmy Pool; second lieutenant, Timothy Booker 
 and put down his name as a private. 
 
 The nephew alone was not astounded by the Judge s 
 action. That five hundred dollars intrusted to Tim 
 Booker had assured him long ago that there were 
 deep waters under the Judge s rhetoric. Directly, he 
 found himself raised over the heads of the cheering 
 crowd, now intoxicated with enthusiasm, to the steps 
 of the court-house, where he rose to his feet with shak 
 ing knees under the fearful fire of calls for a speech. 
 
 "All I ve got to say," he said, "is that no man is 
 good enough to own another man, and if we let any 
 State secede when it has a grievance we sha n t have 
 a nation; we shall have only a disunion of griev 
 ances;" and the Vagabond slipped back down the steps 
 in great embarrassment. 
 
 Nor was the crowd content yet. It caught sight of 
 the white hairs of the arbiter of the cavalry s recruit 
 ing booth. The strong hands that had borne the Vag 
 abond aloft now made fond seizure of Captain Her- 
 rick, who was at once embarrassed and belligerent. 
 
 183 
 
THE VAGABOND 
 
 "Fellow-soldiers er fellow citizens," he said, 
 "the talking s over. This ain t any time to quote long 
 words from the dictionary. It s time to fight and obey 
 orders; and orders, gentlemen, orders are given, sir, 
 without any pretension to oratory, sir. We want all 
 the good men, all the men that don t think they know 
 it all. We want men like the Judge here the Judge 
 who s got enough learning in his head to drown me, 
 sir men who know they ve got a big job on hand and 
 they ve got to begin at the primer of soldiering. Any 
 man that s just thinking how pretty he ll look in his 
 uniform, and how the girls ll tease him for brass but 
 tons; any man that thinks he hasn t the hardest kind 
 of work before him and hardship and suffering that 
 makes a man a man why, we ll give him his belly 
 ache medicine now and sit him on the hotel porch 
 where his criticism of his superiors won t do any harm. 
 Yes, sir, we ll just push him out of the road like a 
 stone that blocks the wheels. Any good man that 
 stays at home, I hope the w r omen folks ll make him 
 get his own victuals and sew on his own pants 
 buttons. 
 
 "You fellows that are good wrestlers needn t think 
 that any rebel is going to wait for you to get a side 
 hold of him. The fellow wins that hits the other first 
 and hardest with a musket ball, sir, not a putty ball, 
 sir. To lick a man with your fists you ve got to know 
 how. To lick him in war, sir, you ve got to know how 
 
 a d d sight better. The only way to know how is 
 
 to drill, drill. Drill hard and fight hard and we ll 
 save the Union, by the Eternal!" 
 
 The example of the Bench had completed the roster 
 of the infantry company, after filling the vacant places 
 
 184 
 
THE VAGABOND 
 
 in the cavalry, which had been recruited chiefly of 
 Californians and of other men hardened by contact 
 with the world away from home, who had appeared 
 out of the blue as a result of a line in the New York 
 papers. All argument to persuade the Judge to accept 
 a discharge failed. He was adamant. His sole re 
 quest was that the drunkard, Pillsbury, should be 
 transferred from infantry to comradeship with one 
 who proposed to make a sober and useful cavalry-man 
 of him. 
 
 No private followed the directions of Drill-master 
 Herrick with the attention of the eldest and most cor 
 pulent trooper. Not until the morning before the de 
 parture of the company for Washington did he ask for 
 leave. Then he "spruced" his new uniform before 
 the glass in his living-room that adjoined his office and 
 proceeded toward the Hope house. If it goes without 
 saying that his sacrifice of position made the sincerity 
 of his enlistment indubitable, it was none the less nat 
 ural that he should have fond hopes of its effect in 
 certain quarters. The day was sunny, and Miss Fe 
 licia happened to be on the porch. She was nettled at 
 sight of the truant, who had not asked her advice as 
 to his course or even come to explain it to her. 
 
 "Whose orderly are you?" she asked. 
 
 "Nobody s. I m only a private yet," he replied. 
 
 Instead of touching it in military fashion, as he had 
 intended, he lifted the little fatigue cap that sat ridic 
 ulously on his high brow, whereupon he was plunged 
 in doubt as to whether or not he had set it back with 
 the proper rake. 
 
 "Oh, indeed!" 
 
 "What what do you think of my uniform I 9 
 185 
 
THE VAGABOND 
 
 His effort to ask the question playfully was dismal, 
 for the advantage of composure was now on her side. 
 
 "I should say that there was either too little cloth 
 or too much man." 
 
 "I I left room to grow smaller, and I am grow 
 ing smaller;" as he was by several pounds, thanks to 
 the exercise of drilling. 
 
 All that he had read about the charm of brass but 
 tons for the fair sex appealed to him as a black He. 
 He dropped to the steps, his dignity gone. 
 
 "Yes," she observed, "privates, I believe, are not 
 supposed to sit on chairs." 
 
 He removed that little fatigue cap altogether; he 
 mopped his brow. 
 
 "I saw you in your carriage when I made my 
 speech. What did you think of it ?" he asked, finally, 
 after a silence that was torture to him, but seemed to 
 agree with her. 
 
 "The last part was very fine; very much matter 
 and very few words." 
 
 "Strange! strange! Thank you. And the part 
 where I referred to the Constitution as a full-rigged 
 ship?" 
 
 "The ship? Oh, yes. Pretty much in your usual 
 style." 
 
 The same that everybody else had said. There had 
 not been a single figure in that impassioned peroration 
 that had taken the place of studied pauses and ruined 
 the force of his oration, leaving him still with the 
 feeling of one who has broken a fine piece of china. 
 Why, he had only talked as he would to a friend in his 
 office! Strange, strange! 
 
 "I see," he said, hopefully, thinking he had light. 
 186 
 
THE VAGABOND 
 
 "People liked it and you liked it because I practised 
 what I preached." 
 
 "Never! never!" she replied, decisively. "The 
 Judge of the county a private ! Where is your sense 
 of proportion ? Is this the most you, with your educa 
 tion and position and and supposed ability can do 
 to carry a rifle; not even raise a company? I hope 
 you will recover your senses yet. There is still time to 
 get a discharge." 
 
 This was the last straw. The Judge lost his tem 
 per. 
 
 "I propose to stick to my resolution, Miss Hope," 
 he said, dramatically, as he rose and slapped his cap 
 on his head askew. "Good-morning." 
 
 "Good-morning, Private "Williams!" 
 
 With his hands thrust deep into his pockets and his 
 head stubbornly bent, he made a most unmilitary fig 
 ure, which took its way defiantly out of the yard. 
 
 "I didn t know he could be so gritty," she remarked 
 to herself, a faint smile flickering on her lips. 
 
 The next day, as the Belmore cavalry passed 
 through a lane of bunting and cheers, Trooper Will 
 iams Hosea Pillsbury at his elbow saw Felicia wav 
 ing a flag; and the line halting for a second as he was 
 opposite her carriage, he heard her exclaim, "Silly!" 
 without knowing at all what she meant by that. 
 
 187 
 
XXI 
 
 TO HEB DOOR BY FOBCE 
 
 In making up that company its leader selected men 
 who, primarily, had the manner and the reputation of 
 being anything but quitters, either plain, cheap, or 
 derned cheap. When it was first mustered in line, 
 Drill-master Herrick described the assembled hundred 
 as an independent lot of generals acting as privates; 
 but he thought they d do for cavalry, being an infan 
 try-man himself and secretly disappointed at the Vag 
 abond s choice of arm. 
 
 Father Bob drilled them without regard to whether 
 their shirt-backs were fast dyed or not, drilled them 
 until they knew how to form column and deploy and 
 that their Captain was "Sir" and not "Cap" or even 
 "Cap n." At his final inspection he said they were 
 like baking-powder bread they d have to do inas 
 much as there was no time to set yeast. "With this 
 parting shot, the old man passed on, by General 
 Scott s order, to assist a West Point cadet in disciplin 
 ing a green regiment of infantry; for in that time 
 anyone who knew the manual of arms found himself 
 a power in the land, and the brilliant young orator in 
 the late elections took lessons from a private of regu 
 lars. 
 
 If the Vagabond s fondness for riding, his love of 
 motion were not enough, the picture one of the most 
 
 188 
 
THE VAGABOND 
 
 precious of a cherished gallery of impressions that 
 Volilla made on Folly alone would have decided him 
 in favor of the cavalry. The pleasantest feature of his 
 new duties was his choice of that dumb ally who was 
 to share danger and triumph with him. He looked 
 at scores of horses before he found a suitable one, a 
 sturdy, clean-limbed but not spider-limbed bay, a 
 hand higher and a hundred pounds heavier than any 
 other in his command. After their first gallop togeth 
 er, the Vagabond thought of the onrushing surf. 
 "Breaker is your name/ 7 he said, as he tapped the 
 white star on the forehead. He watched over Breaker 
 as a father does over a child; he trained him till he 
 could take a fence as vigorously as, if less gracefully 
 than, Folly, or, on the word, would fall down and lie 
 *s quiet as the sea in a calm. 
 
 From the character of its leader, which its troopers 
 shared, and from its faculty of vouchsafing itself at 
 any time or place with the slouching preparedness and 
 good-humor of veterans, the company was soon known 
 throughout the army as the Vagabonds. In the ensu 
 ing weeks after Sumter s fall, they did everything but 
 fight and the one thing that their Captain most wanted 
 to do, namely, make a scout in the neighborhood of 
 the Lanley house. They rode to Harper s Ferry and 
 back; they rode into Maryland; they escorted generals 
 up and down that long line on the southern side of the 
 Potomac which was being daily augmented by new 
 forces and being whipped out of village militia com 
 panies into a composite thing. It was not war any 
 more than the tuning of the orchestra is a ball. There 
 cannot be war without armies; and the armies were 
 yet in making. 
 
 189 
 
THE VAGABOND 
 
 "The ring-master snaps his whip and round and 
 round the ring we go," growled Tim Booker, "jump 
 ing through hoops and over bars and turning somer 
 saults and kissing our hands to the ladies; but don t 
 let the little boy blue hear the crack of a rifle. It 
 might give him a headache. Why I ever left the eter 
 nal hills of California " 
 
 "You wait; you wait, Timothy," said Jimmy Pool, 
 in his languid drawl. "You may get a stomachful of 
 lead for breakfast one of these mornings. The fatted 
 ox never dreams that the butcher is sharpening his 
 knife for him." 
 
 "Jimmy Pool," said Tim, wrathfully, "you go hang 
 your wet cloth out to dry. I ve got to blaze up once 
 in a while or I ll explode." 
 
 There were times when the Vagabond, always used 
 to choosing his own trail and his own camp for the 
 night, was sorely tempted by Tim s scheme of strat 
 egy, which was simplicity itself, being nothing more 
 or less than to ride through to New Orleans and end 
 the war at once. "Besides, we ll be part way back to 
 ^Frisco," Tim added, as a further attraction. 
 
 What most appealed to the Vagabond was that the 
 flight would not be monotonous while it lasted, and 
 he could pay a call before he reached the enemy s 
 lines. While he promenaded and drilled, his story was 
 untold and the girl was only a few hours away. As 
 disingenuously as he might, he suggested to the staff 
 officer of engineers that he had a little talent for to 
 pography and drawing, and he was promptly made a 
 scout at another part of the lines. He even hinted to 
 General Huested, his brigade commander, that he 
 would like to ride out to see what was in front of him. 
 
 190 
 
THE VAGABOND 
 
 In reply the General made a burring sound through 
 his mustache and said nothing. 
 
 Then one afternoon came to his tent Maxim, of the 
 staff, accompanied by a man in a linen duster, with its 
 bottom mud-stained and flying behind him. The Vag 1 
 abend s first impression of Mr. Aikens was that he was 
 green; and it was inevitable that he should not like any 
 man of that complexion, with stooped shoulders, whin 
 ing voice, and the apologetic manner of a weather- 
 vane. No sooner had he read the first sentence of the 
 order that Maxim brought, than strangers and linen 
 dusters passed into oblivion. 
 
 "ALEXANDRIA, June 18, 1861. 
 
 "CAPTAIN WILLIAM WILLIAMS: 
 
 "At dawn to-morrow morning you will proceed 
 with your company to the Lanley plantation. Mr. 
 Aikens, who was formerly an overseer on that planta 
 tion, knows the country and is at your disposal. If 
 necessary and your force is adequate, you will push in 
 any outposts in your way. If your force is inade 
 quate, you will immediately report the fact to me. 
 Your main business is to get as accurate a map as pos 
 sible of the country to the south of Lanleyton; inci 
 dentally, to glean information. From this point, 
 which is the highest ground in the region, you will 
 be in sight of the enemy s camp. As soon as the ene 
 my is apprised of your presence you will likely be at 
 tacked in force by cavalry. I believe that there is a 
 signal-man in the cupola of the house. This fact, taken 
 in connection with a detached outpost, some distance 
 on this side of the house, may mean any one of a num 
 ber of things. I leave you to ascertain what. 
 
 191 
 
THE VAGABOND 
 
 "You must hold your own until you have accom 
 plished your purpose. The time that you will have to 
 do this depends upon your quickness of observation 
 and your facility with your pencil. I may add that the 
 map is of extreme importance, so you may govern 
 yourself accordingly. 
 
 "By order, 
 
 "JAMES H. HUESTED, Brig.-Gen., U. S. V., 
 "Commanding the Second Brigade, Third Division." 
 
 Maxim smiled as he watched the Vagabond devour 
 the lines of this officially polite invitation to death or 
 success. 
 
 "Look out for old Ginger Southbridge!" (who was 
 of Maxim s class at the Point.) "He s all rigged out 
 in Spanish spurs, plume and sash, and he and his cav 
 alry are riding up and down like the wrath of God, on 
 the look-out for the like of you and yours. Wish I 
 was going with you. Success!" 
 
 Meanwhile, from sheer force of habit, Aikens s 
 shifting eyes had made note of everything in his host s 
 tent. At that moment he was as unconscious as the 
 Vagabond of the part he was to play against his new 
 acquaintance. It was soon evident that he was a bet 
 ter observer of human surroundings than of topog 
 raphy. Were the banks of this creek so high as to 
 prevent the rapid passage of cavalry in extended or 
 der? Was the house visible from that grove ? Really, 
 the informant did not know. In extenuation of his 
 ignorance, which searching questions had developed, 
 the man in the linen duster fell back upon the phrase 
 which had profited him well in New England, where 
 he had appeared before abolition societies as the over 
 seer who had sacrificed his position from conscientious 
 
 192 
 
THE VAGABOND 
 
 scruples. Of course the truth was that he had been 
 discharged for brutality to the field-hands and worse. 
 
 "Oh, I spent a miserable time on that place! The 
 young lady who owns it not until you know the 
 South can you understand how cruel she was to the 
 poor black " 
 
 "She was not cruel!" The Vagabond, who seldom 
 flew into a passion, was in a savage one now. The very 
 assertion, above all from a green man in a linen duster, 
 that the girl of his heart s desire was anything but 
 gentle, did not admit of thought or discussion. "You 
 lie, Mr. Aikens, you lie!" 
 
 Cringing, Aikens longed for nothing so much as 
 the courage to resent this sudden and amazing out 
 burst from a quarter whence he little expected it ; but 
 it was not in him, and, therefore, a new grudge was 
 born in the camp-follower s heart. 
 
 "I beg your pardon, Captain," he said. 
 
 "And you know you lied," came the uncompromis 
 ing corollary. 
 
 "Perhaps I was prejudiced I I exaggerated." 
 
 With that the Vagabond closed the interview and 
 forgot Aikens as he hastened to Jimmy and Tim with 
 the news. 
 
 When the Vagabonds learned that there was action 
 afoot, they prepared for it by doing many things that 
 would have made them smile after they became veter 
 ans. They rubbed the hilts of their sabres; they ran 
 their thumbs along the blades; they examined each 
 part of their accoutrements ; their fingers crept up and 
 down their horses legs in reassurance, all being ac 
 companied by that subdued because overdone banter 
 of men who expect to go under fire. 
 
 At midnight a line of shadowy forms on the edge 
 193 
 
THE VAGABOND 
 
 of the camp awaited the word. In double file, their 
 sabres held so that they would not clank, every man 
 watching the one in front of him, now in the shadow 
 of groves, again in ravines, no word spoken except an 
 oath smothered in a whisper to a trooper who lighted 
 a cigar, keeping to the sod and avoiding roads which 
 would be sounding-boards for horses hoofs, they rode 
 five miles by angles and circles for one mile as the 
 crow flies. Finally they halted in a clump of woods 
 as definitely as a coach before an inn. Dismounted 
 and resting on the ground, Jimmy Pool ventured the 
 first remark not purely of practical significance. 
 
 "D n well done!" he whispered. It was the 
 
 strongest word of praise in his vocabulary and he used 
 it rarely. 
 
 "D n pretty puzzle!" growled Tim. "Far s I 
 
 know, we re back in Maryland. Probably got to es 
 cort some governor of a State to a cemetery to hunt 
 for a rabbit s foot. Needn t tell me we re going to 
 fight. Fight! Here am I, an able-bodied American 
 citizen, a Californian, a miner glued up in a uniform 
 and dangling a sabre and drawing a bootblack s pay, 
 when I might be back in the eternal hills of " 
 
 "Not so loud," Jimmy warned him; and "Wait, 
 Timothy." 
 
 Thus they did wait upon the rising of the curtain 
 of night, rehearsing to themselves in silence the parts 
 they were to play, all carefully arranged beforehand 
 by their leader. "With the flush that heralds the dawn 
 they sprang softly into their saddles, as if they were 
 under oath not to awaken the sleeping world. Here 
 and there was the rustle of leather or the thud of an 
 impatient hoof. In answer to a low whistle, a line of 
 knees pressed the horses sides and the charge began. 
 
 194 
 
THE VAGABOND 
 
 The Confederate outpost, awakened by the tumult 
 that had broken out of the darkness and solitude, were 
 rubbing their eyes when shadowy forms began to pass 
 over them and they dodged iron heels and sabre 
 thrusts. The Vagabonds had an instant s view of the 
 camp, such as one gets of a village from a balloon 
 hard driven by the wind. Everyone made a cut at 
 one reclining form or another, as a boy catches at the 
 ring from the wooden steed of a merry-go-round. If 
 he failed of his object his chance was gone, and with 
 blade uplifted he found himself borne on across the 
 fields, with the first shots of the surprised enemy 
 crackling behind. 
 
 On up the slope toward the house they rode, never 
 slackening pace when the company divided into three 
 parts, one going to the left, one to the right, of the 
 park, while the third, with the Vagabond at its head, 
 dashed under the trees. He had disposed his little 
 force in a semicircle of three points, prepared to fall 
 back as soon as his work was done, while he was to 
 ascend to the cupola of the house where the trees 
 could not hide his view and the surrounding country 
 would be a panorama before his eyes. The enemy s 
 outpost could not reach them before the map was 
 made, and in returning they could go as they had 
 come, on the gallop, careless of obstacles. "No sooner 
 had they debouched from the grove than the signal 
 man stationed in the cupola was waving the flag that 
 announced their attack. By a coincidence, South- 
 bridge s cavalry was in the saddle about to start on an 
 entirely different mission, but welcoming with a shout 
 the one which circumstances provided. 
 
 It also happened that Mi^s Lanley was up and dress 
 ing. If she were to ride at all in comfort these hot 
 
 195 
 
THE VAGABOND 
 
 days she must start at sun-up. When she heard the 
 thunder of hoof-beats she supposed that Southbridge 
 was making another one of his practice runs for the 
 good of his men and the peace of his own conscience. 
 Their foaming horses sent the gravel flying and their 
 accoutrements jingled with the sudden halt of the lit 
 tle cavalcade at the door. 
 
 "JSTow out under those trees and hold fast till you 
 hear from me!" cried the Vagabond, passing his reins 
 to his orderly as he sprang to earth. 
 
 His men trotted on. He took two or three steps 
 and then stopped as abruptly as if he had been struck. 
 Miss Lanley stood before him on the threshold. 
 
 "It s you !" she exclaimed in horror. 
 
 That "you" was intensely personal. It embraced 
 at once her hatred of the invader and her shock that 
 any Federal soldier should be so far South with his 
 sabre still on his belt. She made him feel juvenile 
 and contemptible. 
 
 "The fortunes of war! A month ago I was a guest 
 here." 
 
 "Pardon!" she interrupted, icily, frowning at the 
 word. 
 
 "I mean, you were very nice to me while your 
 smith shod my horse. To-day my General has sent 
 me to make a map from your cupola." 
 
 "I will not permit it," she replied, in the tone 
 of one closing a discussion with a protesting 
 servant. 
 
 In her start at sight of him she had withdrawn a 
 step. Recovering herself, she advanced again and 
 fairly barred the way. Her head was thrown back, 
 her thin nostrils were playing with her defiant 
 
 196 
 
THE VAGABOND 
 
 breaths, and her eyes, their pupils contracted to two 
 small points of flame, met his steadily. There were no 
 flying sparks, no cattishness. Her anger was as se 
 rene as white heat. He forgot his mission in contem 
 plation of the picture she made. 
 
 "Heavens! but you are beautiful when you look 
 that way!" he said, so simply that the truth shone 
 through every word. 
 
 She raised her hunting-crop as if she would strike 
 him with all her strength. Realizing instantly how 
 his words must have sounded to her, he determined 
 to receive the blow; for he felt that he deserved it. 
 She let her arm fall and stepped to one side. 
 
 "Let force prevail where a gentleman would not!" 
 
 "A thousand pardons! What I said was true, true, 
 true! And that s why I said it," he declared, as again 
 realizing the pressing importance of every second, he 
 started up the stairs three at a bound. 
 
 Instantly his back was turned, she ran into the 
 yard where she could see the cupola, in pursuance of 
 a plan, the conception of which had led her to yield. 
 
 The Vagabond had overlooked the fact that he 
 might have a signal-man to deal with and was oblivious 
 of any fresh danger. When he found himself on the 
 platform flush with the roof, from which the cupola 
 was entered by half a dozen steps on the opposite side 
 from the stairway, as suddenly as an indicator flies 
 up on a switch a revolver was flashed in his face. 
 
 "Up with your hands, Yank!" cried the signal-man. 
 
 "Just as you say," the Vagabond responded, and he 
 raised his palms abjectly. 
 
 At the same moment he dodged his head back be 
 hind one of the octagonal sides of a structure which 
 
 197 
 
THE VAGABOND 
 
 had advantages for a game of hide-and-seek. That sur 
 prised the signal-man a little. It was like catching a 
 squirrel by the tail and finding that the rest of him 
 had fled. He had nothing to shoot at except two 
 hands. Directly, one of those disappeared, and he un 
 derstood what it was after. So he pushed his revolver 
 slowly forward, his head at a safe distance behind it. 
 It did not require as skilful a marksman as the Vaga 
 bond to hit the tanned hand which was only two feet 
 away. There was a report and the signal-man s weapon 
 fell to the floor, while at the sight of a gleaming barrel 
 and a smiling face behind it he threw his head back 
 as suddenly as if someone had unexpectedly stuck a 
 pin in his chin. 
 
 "Now," said his captor, "step back to your place. 
 I prefer your company to having you lie in wait for 
 me on the stairs. Not to mention that I ve got a re 
 volver, I m bigger and stronger than you, my boy; 
 BO you better be reconciled." 
 
 "Oh, I m as good as preachin ! Durn my skin if 
 ever any blue-belly ll fool me again that a way. I 
 acted as though that revolver of mine could see." 
 
 "No, your mistake was in coming down to meet me. 
 You ought to have leaned out of the cupola window 
 and caught me as I appeared at the head of the stairs." 
 
 "M-m-m! That s right," said the signal-man, as he 
 bound up his thumb with his handkerchief. 
 
 A glance showed the enemy s tents a field of mush 
 rooms on the plain beyond; it showed how easy was 
 the Vagabond s task if he had time for it; and it 
 showed something more a line of cavalry moving 
 away from camp. 
 
 "Signal to that cavalry to wait, that it needs infan- 
 198 
 
THE VAGABOND 
 
 try to support it that we have ten guns and five thou 
 sand men! Quick, or I ll " he said, fiercely, to the 
 signal-man. 
 
 The prisoner picked up his flag with most unseemly 
 alacrity^ and grinned maliciously. 
 
 "Sure pop!" he said. "But you kin wave all the 
 table-spreads in the world and you kin t stop Ginger 
 Southbridge when the General s give him a chance to 
 go somewhar. Mister Yank, you and your blue-bel 
 lies down thar ll have to walk to Richmond while 
 Confeds ride your nags." 
 
 The Vagabond s real desire was to save Southbridge 
 the trouble of coming so far; to go out to meet him 
 half-way. But desires have little place in war. He 
 was outnumbered six to one. His orders were to make 
 the map and go, and the time left for that was the 
 three or four minutes that it would require that gal 
 loping column to arrive. If he resisted, there would 
 be a scrimmage. 
 
 And Volilla ! She would be under fire. She would 
 see men wounded and dying on her very door-step. 
 His sense of chivalry became alive to possibilities that 
 had not occurred to him before. It was enough to 
 have forced his way into her house without making 
 her lawn a battle-field. Seizing the whistle which he 
 used for giving signals to his men, he blew the call of 
 withdrawal ; and realizing that if he was to accompany 
 them no time was to be lost, he started back down the 
 stairs, solacing himself with the idea that he could 
 make a map from memory. 
 
 From the yard, after the signal-man had all too im 
 petuously acted on her information, Volilla, in cha 
 grin that made her stamp her foot, had seen the abject 
 
 199 
 
THE VAGABOND 
 
 
 
 prisoner of one moment the buoyant captor of the 
 
 next. Though she could not see him clearly, she was 
 sure that he swaggered in actor fashion; that he 
 smiled with vexatious confidence. She felt as if she 
 had been personally baffled. The blood tingled in the 
 lobes of her little ears. Her desire to teach this im 
 pudent circus-rider of a man a lesson, to humiliate him 
 in his turn, outweighed every other consideration. 
 
 She ran back into the house, her imagination soar 
 ing and falling as she conceived and dismissed plans. 
 Bulwer s pistol, hanging on the rack, fairly leaped at 
 her with a suggestion that made her temples throb in 
 exultation. She seized it and ran up the stairs, meet 
 ing the Vagabond just at the head of the flight lead 
 ing from the cupola. Thus far she had been perfectly 
 certain of herself. She was used to fire-arms, but not 
 to taking prisoners. She felt her heart beating tu- 
 multuously and her hand trembling, though her brain 
 bade it be still, as she pointed the weapon straight 
 into his face. 
 
 "Surrender!" 
 
 Trying to speak the word steadily, her ears told her 
 that the r s were blurred in a pitching tremolo. 
 
 And he ? To her increased rage and distraction, he 
 smiled at that black muzzle and at her, as much as to 
 say that he knew she was only playing. For in the 
 new demonstration he had found quite another side 
 of her to admire, and he forgot again that his safety 
 depended upon haste. 
 
 "I have already," he said, pleasantly. 
 
 "To him, yes," she said; "now to me!" 
 
 He inclined his head gently in compliance. 
 
 "I have already to you the first time I saw you!" 
 200 
 
THE VAGABOND 
 
 he cried, unconscious of all save her and his love for 
 her. 
 
 Because it stiffened her anger, she almost thanked 
 him for this crowning impudent thrust of his noncha 
 lance (as it seemed to her). She saw that her hand no 
 longer trembled. Afterward she recalled that the 
 sight was fairly between his eyes and that she had 
 thought that a little too brutal. She lowered it until 
 it covered his breast, while he still smiled at her deter 
 mination. 
 
 "Throw your revolver out of the window there, or 
 I fire I" 
 
 He saw that she would be as good as her word, and, 
 still smiling, he did as he was bid, while her attention 
 was for an instant diverted by the movement. His 
 weapon left his fingers as they were near the muzzle 
 of her own weapon, the barrel of which he suddenly 
 grasped, and, swerving it to one side, held it there 
 steadily, making her most sensible of her powerless- 
 ness without having exerted his masculine strength 
 roughly, while he continued to smile pleasantly. 
 
 "Necessity requires," he said, softly, as to a partner 
 in a dance. "If it were only you and not your sol 
 diers who wanted me, though I were in an arsenal, 
 you could have me by lifting your finger." 
 
 As jauntily as they would have swung in a minuet, 
 he passed around his indignant adversary, his last 
 glimpse being of blazing eyes and set lips. She let her 
 revolver fall to a level with his back, little thinking 
 that her safety had impelled his retreat. There was 
 an instant of irresolution which seemed an hour to her, 
 and she did not fire. 
 
 At the door was the section of his company imme- 
 201 
 
THE VAGABOND 
 
 diately under his command, while on the road he 
 caught glimpses of the others at the trot. He picked 
 up his own revolver from the spot where it had fallen 
 when he threw it out of the window, calling to the 
 men to proceed. As he swung into the saddle he 
 heard yells of delight joined to the thunderous hoof- 
 song of the Virginia Firsts. They bore a personal 
 message to him. They seemed to say : 
 
 "Oh, you are running away running away from 
 Southbridge yes, from Southbridge before you 
 have made that map. What are you going to tell the 
 General? That there was a girl and you couldn t? 
 How many times more are you going to change your 
 mind ? Are you going to confess failure in face of the 
 General s order, when you haven t had a man 
 scratched? You ll get another chance, oh, yes, you 
 will a chance to guard piles of hardtack!" 
 
 Already the first of his file of twos was passing un 
 der the trees at the entrance to the road. They were 
 calling "Look out for your heads!" and as soon as the 
 way was clear they drove in their spurs and broke for 
 safety with all speed. When he saw the man ahead of 
 him reach up to push aside the twigs, the Vagabond s 
 inspiration and opportunity came. He grasped the 
 overhanging limb of the elm and swung himself 
 upon it. 
 
 "I ve got to finish that map. If I don t return, 
 you ll find it in a crotch of the tree," he called to his 
 startled orderly. 
 
 202 
 
xxn 
 
 FOLLY TAKES BKEAKEE^S PLACE 
 
 Precipitately, lie slid along the limb and lifted him 
 self upon the one above, so that his dangling legs 
 would not be a signal of his predicament. From this 
 position, jubilant in the conviction that his own com 
 pany had too much of a lead to be caught, he watched 
 the Confederates sweep through the park in a whirl 
 wind of shouts and crunching gravel, leaving the 
 twigs that had whipped the men s faces quivering. 
 Soon he heard a scattering rifle-fire and knew that 
 Southbridge had halted his men in order to speed the 
 parting guest with a few charges of lead. Then 
 Southbridge rode back in a rage that his orders per 
 mitted him to go no farther. If they had, he would 
 have ridden clear to the Union lines, though he had 
 not gained an inch on the way. He dismounted his 
 men and he himself stepped upon the porch. Yolilla 
 was visible in the door-way over the back of Sir 
 Knight as he swept the floor with his plume. Such a 
 radiant smile as she now bestowed upon another was 
 the Vagabond s haunting ambition and hope. It 
 would have been better for his peace of mind if he 
 had not seen this or heard her greeting of his pursuer. 
 
 "A heroic relief!" she cried. 
 
 "Not a bit of it," the Vagabond thought, savagely. 
 Then he heard Southbridge say: 
 
 203 
 
THE VAGABOND 
 
 "You will find the Virginia Firsts always on hand. 
 We never sleep. We are always in the saddle, always 
 riding, for then no chance will escape us. I shall not 
 rest till the last invader is off our soil." 
 
 "They ran at sight of you/ she said, whether out 
 of admiration for Southbridge or contempt for the 
 Federals the Vagabond was at a loss to determine. 
 
 "As for this California adventurer, Williams" ad 
 venturer! it is hard for a brave man to be called that 
 and remain silent, especially when he is a-straddle of 
 a limb "I shall catch him yet, easily, quite easily," 
 Southbridge concluded, with as much nonchalance as 
 if he meant a train. 
 
 "Will you!" said the Vagabond, softly, rolling the 
 morsel on his tongue. "Hm-m-m, will you!" 
 
 Here, Bulwer, dust-covered, came riding swiftly up, 
 his errand being the safety of his mother, who was 
 staying at Lanleyton. The three went into the house, 
 Southbridge ascending to the cupola to report by wig 
 wag to his General. 
 
 The Confederates had distributed themselves about 
 in the shade, most of them to the north of the house, 
 where the well was. A few, however, were in the 
 Vagabond s neighborhood. One of these, casting 
 about for a seat, dropped at the roots of the elm and 
 leaned his back against the trunk. If he looked up, a 
 sensation was certain. He took a chew of tobacco and 
 his habit of mind seemed such that if the Vagabond 
 did not attract his attention by any movement, he 
 would be preoccupied until the juice was flowing well. 
 
 Whether the interval of security was to be long or 
 short, the Vagabond determined to make the most of 
 it. The very possibility of being taken before he had 
 
 204 
 
THE VAGABOND 
 
 made any map at all made him forget the pain of his 
 cramped position, which he dared not change. As he 
 drew from memory with hasty strokes, he thought 
 how completely he had lost his head for duty both 
 times when he found himself alone with the girl he 
 had carried secretly in his heart for twelve years. At 
 last he had two matching sheets finished, and as he 
 surveyed them he imagined he heard a military growl 
 when the General should observe their want of detail. 
 
 "And I could have made such a fine map from the 
 cupola if if when I look in her eyes I don t cease to 
 think of everything except her," he thought a little de 
 jectedly; "and I might have busied Southbridge a bit, 
 too." 
 
 Having crammed the pieces of paper into the crotch 
 nearest him, he had nothing to do except to look down 
 at the private who, perhaps magnetized by his gaze, 
 leaned back lazily and saw something blue overhead. 
 He blinked to dispel the illusion, vainly. 
 
 "Hello!" he said, tentatively. "Hello, Yank!" he 
 added, in full conviction; and the Vagabond saw that 
 he was about to give the alarm. Before it could take 
 expression, the muzzle of a revolver was poked 
 through the leaves. 
 
 "One word, my boy," the man on the limb whis 
 pered, "just one word, and you won t be at roll-call in 
 the morning." 
 
 The private blinked again. He switched his cud 
 from one corner of his mouth to the other with the de 
 liberation of a ruminant, before committing himself 
 to a line of action. 
 
 "That s a good talk," he replied, "only you won t. 
 You shoot me and you ll be killed as dead as a door- 
 
 205 
 
THE VAGABOND 
 
 nail. I reckon you d ruther be a live prisoner, eh, 
 Yank?" 
 
 "It depends," Billy responded, with the assumption 
 of desperate cynicism. "It s less trouble in a scrim 
 mage than to be shot with ceremony. I m not going 
 to be taken alive, that s certain. So much for me. 
 You re the interested party, Johnny Reb. It makes 
 a lot of difference to you just the difference of 
 whether you go with your comrades or go to kingdom 
 come this minute. I ll take as much as I lose. I ll 
 tally one, anyway. Yes, I ll get you sure, fair be 
 tween the eyes, and I think I can fix that fellow with 
 the week-old beard yonder, too." 
 
 Nothing more affects the personal equation than a 
 small black spot in a circle of steel with a sight above 
 it and a clear eye beyond that. The Vagabond cocked 
 his revolver with a click that was as suggestive as the 
 roar of Niagara Falls. 
 
 "All right," the private whispered. "Don t shoot, 
 Yank! It s a bargain." 
 
 "And you aren t going to mention it, now or after 
 ward?" 
 
 "Nope." 
 
 "I know your word s good," Billy said, and dropped 
 the revolver to his knee. 
 
 "Afterward?" The private grinned. "Say, I d be 
 a nice kind of galoot to tell the Colonel I seen a Yank 
 but didn t take him cause he got his gun up first. Not 
 me! Why, the joke s on me/" And he broke into a 
 guffaw which was misery to the Vagabond s ears. 
 
 "What you larfin about ?" called another Confed 
 erate. 
 
 "At the way old Ginger ripped and tore over his 
 206 
 
THE VAGABOND 
 
 orders," was the perfectly innocent reply. Then he 
 reached into his pocket and brought forth a roll of 
 fine cut. Renewing his cud, he said: "Yank, it ain t 
 none of my business, but I d like to know how you 
 happen to be a-straddle of that limb ?" 
 
 "The limb just picked me up unexpectedly." 
 
 "Wasn t very used to riding, was you? Most of 
 you Northerners have been clerks and constables and 
 shoe-makers, ain t you? Crackey! You d think you 
 was sitting on a pair of boils, though, if you had to 
 follow old Ginger Southbridge for a day. Not much 
 cavalry, either, have you? There s one lot I heard 
 of under a fellow named Williams that s right smart, 
 though. Old Ginger s just waitin to gather em in. 
 If the General d only let us go, we Tigers d have the 
 Virginia jails full of Yanks. That fellow Williams 
 must be a skunk. He s from California, I hear. Now 
 California ought to keep out of this war. It ain t right 
 for a man from way out there to interfere. Ginger ll 
 get Williams yet; you see if he don t." 
 
 The fun of the thing was irresistible ; the Vagabond 
 revealed his identity. 
 
 "G-a-w-d!" exclaimed the private, his cud held in 
 suspension on his tongue. Just "G-a-w-d" and noth 
 ing more! 
 
 "That s no excuse for breaking your agreement, 
 though," added the Vagabond, coming back to a sense 
 of his position. 
 
 "You look here, Billyums," replied the private, 
 "you ain t no officer to me. I called you a skunk and 
 that s what you are, mixing up in other folks s wars. 
 And I want to tell you right now, Billyums" the 
 play on the name seemed to afford the private his one 
 
 207, 
 
THE VAGABOND 
 
 consolation "that a Virginian s word s as good a3 
 any blue-bellied Yank s that ever walked." 
 
 Here the sound of the bugle made them both look 
 toward the porch, where the two officers and Miss 
 Lanley had reappeared. 
 
 "G-a-w-d! To think that Ginger s that near to 
 you and don t know it!" His comrades were hasten 
 ing to mount, and, as he arose, the private paid his 
 farewell respects to the man in the tree. a You made 
 a monkey of me and don t you think I don t know it, 
 Billyums. Of course you wouldn t have shot me! 
 You just go to h 1! I ll get even with you yet!" 
 
 "I think you re a good fellow and thank you very 
 much," the Vagabond responded. 
 
 Putting his thumb to his nose in a most impolite 
 gesture, the private rode to his place in the line. 
 
 Southbridge was giving orders in a grandiloquent 
 tone. For Miss Lanley s praise, he formed his men in 
 close order, the gray mass stretching across the whole 
 open space to the very edge of the trees. 
 
 "A review in my honor! This is too much!" 
 thought the Vagabond, as with critical eye he meas 
 ured the strength of that fine body of soldiery. 
 
 Southbridge was standing on the porch, with one 
 gauntleted hand holding his hat and the other on his 
 sword-hilt. His orderly at the foot of the steps held 
 his horse, and strapped to the orderly s saddle was the 
 one superfluous article in that regiment s accoutre 
 ments its commander s guitar. He looked up and 
 down his columns with searching dignity until the 
 lines were all rectified. Then he passed the word, 
 and every sabre flashed out, making a field of rigid, 
 gleaming steel points. He turned to Miss Lanley with 
 
 208 
 
THE VAGABOND 
 
 a bow the bow of the equestrian who has jumped 
 through a flaming ring in the circus, thought the Vag 
 abond contemptuously and she impulsively threw a 
 kiss at the whole command, which every trooper 
 caught rapturously out of the corner of his eye. 
 
 "Three cheers for your commander!" she called. 
 
 They did not cheer. They broke into that terrible 
 yell whose echoes for four years rose and fell, from 
 the Mississippi to Hampton Roads, with the fortunes 
 of their cause. 
 
 "That s better than cheering," said Southbridge. 
 "A man stops when he cheers. I don t want the Vir 
 ginia Firsts ever to have the idea that they are to be 
 still. Cheering is all very well for gunners and quar 
 termasters," and he cast a glance at Bulwer, who was 
 now a colonel of artillery. 
 
 "With that, he bowed again; the sabres went shuck 
 ing home into their scabbards, and he remounted and 
 in columns of twos the Tigers started down the drive, 
 a band of sinewy, determined men on sinewy horses, 
 with the spirit of corps written large on every face 
 fellow Americans, that s all. 
 
 "They ll have to push these twigs out of the way 
 and then they ll look up and see me," thought the 
 Vagabond. 
 
 He sprang to the other side of the trunk, and, cling 
 ing with hands and knees, waited in suspense until the 
 last file had passed and he knew that he had been un 
 observed. Then he seated himself again in the 
 crotch to think over the situation; and, having once 
 more a view of the house through the foliage, he saw 
 that Volilla and Bulwer had left the porch. If he 
 started for the Union lines he might fall into the 
 
 209 
 
THE VAGABOND 
 
 hands of the outpost. For that enterprise, then, night 
 was best; while as yet it was only six in the morning, 
 not to mention that his seat was none too comfortable. 
 Apparently, Southbridge by order had withdrawn for 
 good, leaving only Bulwer and the signal-man to dis 
 pute possession with him. At that moment she, of 
 whom he craved only an hour s listening, might be 
 alone. Within grasp was the chance which might not 
 be his for many months or even years, should the war 
 last that long. He could apologize for the rudeness 
 of the morning; he could tell the whole story of his 
 fancy for a mountain, a mine and a girl one girl 
 the only one. As for Bulwer, his capture and release 
 would enforce his desired absence. 
 
 He was about to descend from the tree when he saw 
 a carriage with two riding-horses, one with a Confed 
 erate saddle-cloth and the other Miss Lanley s, coming 
 from the stable. Mrs. Bulwer, on the arm of her son 
 and looking as if she resented action at so early an 
 hour, appeared in the door- way, with Yolilla just be 
 hind them. After Mrs. Bulwer was snugly fixed on 
 the cushions, the other two mounted. Josephus 
 cracked his whip, an event which seemed of little in 
 terest to the two fat old horses, which started off at a 
 walk. 
 
 For the Vagabond, mother and son, carriage and 
 driver, were so many supernumeraries. His gaze, as 
 steady in its course as a planet, followed the graceful 
 horsewoman down the drive. If she had looked up as 
 she ducked under the limb she might have seen him. 
 There was no use of denying to himself that she was 
 going beyond the Confederate lines, where she would 
 be as unapproachable as if she were in Ciina. When 
 
 210 
 
THE VAGABOND 
 
 should lie see her again, now? How long would his 
 story have to wait? 
 
 "Honestly, I did want another word just to change 
 your impression of this morning/ he said, half aloud, 
 to the retreating figure. "I beg your pardon for 
 many things. Please don t think I m as bad as I 
 acted." 
 
 A group of negroes who had watched the departure 
 hurried back to the out-buildings, thinking it unwise 
 to be abroad in such troublous times. The house had 
 the peculiar aspect of desertion of one that has been 
 left in haste. Through the wide-open door and win 
 dows he could see the polished floors and the old-fash 
 ioned furniture. Why shouldn t he make his map at 
 leisure from his chosen vantage-point? He slipped 
 down from his perch with the relief of one released 
 from prison. Under cover of the trees he reached the 
 porch and then tiptoed up the stairs unobserved. 
 Adroitly, by soft approach, he again succeeded in tak 
 ing the occupant of the cupola by surprise. 
 
 "Are you makin reg lar inspections of this place?" 
 asked the signal-man, as he handed over his revolver 
 with his left hand, the other being bandaged. 
 
 "Why?" 
 
 " Cause, if you are, I m goin to ask for reinforce 
 ments. Think I need a flanking party right over yon 
 der." He pointed to a spur on the roof that command 
 ed the cupola. 
 
 "That s a good-sized left hand you have. Suppose 
 you sit there yourself. I don t want you quite so near. 
 Of course, if you try any tricks, I ll shoot promptly." 
 
 "Anything t oblige. You don t mind if I play 
 mumblety-peg to pass the time ?" 
 
 211 
 
THE VAGABOND 
 
 "Good ! I see you are a soldier who accepts the In 
 evitable without a snarl." 
 
 Surveying again the broad vista which the cupola 
 afforded, he noticed behind the hills and trees to the 
 right of the great open field between the house and 
 the enemy s camp the movement of a column toward 
 the north. This was undoubtedly information for the 
 General ; but his first duty, the more pressing because 
 of the folly which had delayed its execution, was the 
 map. He settled himself to make it with the keen de 
 light which he always took in drawing. The signal 
 man watched him curiously, for some time in silence, 
 and then remarked: 
 
 "Say, Yank, it s kind o lonesome over here. If 
 you ain t got no objection, I d like to look over your 
 shoulder. I won t try any shenanigan, s help me." 
 
 Without glancing up, the draughtsman gave his 
 consent. For some time the spectator said nothing, 
 as he watched with circus-day wonder the swift strokes 
 of the pencil. 
 
 "Puttin it all down, ain t you?" he said, finally. 
 "Say, if you don t mind answering a question I al 
 ways said I d ask the first Yank I ever met, will you 
 please tell me what right your army s got comin 
 down here, when all us folks wants is to mind our 
 own business and other folks to mind theirs ?" 
 
 "We want to save the Union. We want to keep 
 such good fellows as you in it." 
 
 "You mean you want our niggers; ain t that it, 
 now?" 
 
 "Not with me." 
 
 "Just what I thought. I always said that all Yanks 
 wasn t blue-bellied. I expect there s some like you 
 
 212 
 
THE VAGABOND 
 
 who don t know what they re fightin for. The Yan 
 kee politicians just got you worked up." 
 
 "Do you know what you re fighting for?" 
 
 "Yes, sir. For State s rights and ag in Northern 
 domination. What d you do if we marched up your 
 way and tried to run your affairs?" 
 
 "Fight." 
 
 The Confederate smiled in triumph. 
 
 "Oh, no, you wouldn t. You d just lay down and 
 say please, sir you d haf to for the Union, wouldn t 
 you?" 
 
 "It depends," the Vagabond said, good-humor edly. 
 Then he asked, innocently, as he pointed with his pen 
 cil: "Does that road bend to the south or run due 
 
 The keen gray eye of the signal-man twinkled 
 knowingly. 
 
 "All that you can t see I don t know anything 
 about," he replied. 
 
 In consequence, the Vagabond liked him better 
 than ever and wished heartily that he and the private 
 under the tree were in his own command. They chat 
 ted on until the last stroke was on the matching sheets, 
 and he folded them and put them in his pocket with 
 the consciousness that he had done his part, come what 
 would. When he looked toward the north he discov 
 ered what the enemy had been doing in the meantime. 
 The outpost in front of the house had been reinforced 
 and spread out in open order. Under the screen of a 
 clump of trees was a battery of guns (Bulwer s). He 
 saw some scouts riding back in a ravine, where the 
 gray patch of a body of cavalry was all but melted into 
 the brownish earth. He recognized instantly that if 
 
 213 
 
THE VAGABOND 
 
 his Vagabonds returned for the map they would be 
 ingulfed by a superior force, against which tactics 
 would beat out its brain and courage ply its sabre in 
 vain. Return, for his sake if for no other cause, they 
 would, he knew. Already they might be on the way. 
 Night was now as distant for his purpose as the next 
 century. On foot he stood one chance out of twenty 
 of getting through that line which, quite ignorant of 
 his presence, had snakily crept around him while he 
 drew. He must try for the twentieth. 
 
 "I haven t a kingdom," he thought, "but I d give 
 my mine for a horse. Then I d reach safety or they d 
 have me in the next ten minutes." 
 
 As he sprang down the steps of the cupola he saw a 
 solitary figure approaching on the road. A quick 
 glance through his glasses, and only the signal-man s 
 presence kept him from dancing out of sheer delight. 
 She of his heart s desire had again proved herself 
 worthy of his highest conception. She had merely ac 
 companied Mrs. Bulwer to a place of safety and was 
 now returning to her home, whither duty called her. 
 It was not entirely the thought of meeting her again 
 that made him drum his fingers in impatience and ela 
 tion until he heard her horse on the drive. Then he 
 blessed the catch on the trap-door, which he closed 
 after him, and, descending rapidly, reached the front 
 door just as Miss Lanley stopped before it. When she 
 saw him she said: 
 
 "You again!" 
 
 And nothing could have been more personal than 
 her exclamation of disgust at finding him there. 
 
 He sprang forward to assist her to dismount. 
 
 "If you please." She spoke so frigidly, arbitrarily, 
 214 
 
THE VAGABOND 
 
 that lie drew back his hand and she left the saddle un 
 assisted. 
 
 "I want to say," he began, persistently, "that what 
 ever I did this morning war s stern rules demanded, 
 and it was a source of pain." 
 
 "Do not suffer too much!" she exclaimed; and then ? 
 triumphantly: "Your apish tricks are at an end. You 
 are surrounded. You cannot escape this time." 
 
 " And that," he said, recovering his pleasantry, 
 "prevents me from telling my story now, for I have 
 much much to tell you. It makes it necessary, still 
 further, to impress your hospitality. I must borrow 
 your horse to save myself from capture." 
 
 "No! no! You cannot take Folly!" she cried. Her 
 hands joined his on the reins. "I love this horse ! No, 
 you savage!" 
 
 He swung round her and threw himself into the 
 saddle with a bound. 
 
 "There, you needn t hold him any longer. Pm so 
 sorry," he said. 
 
 She looked about helplessly for assistance. 
 
 "It s brutal, very brutal, and war is brutal," he 
 added. His fingers slipped along the reins. "I hope 
 I sha n t have to go to the last resort." 
 
 "Oh!" she cried, and drew her hands away as if 
 his were venomous. "Haven t you any considera 
 tion for a pet? They will fire at the sight of 
 your uniform the whole line will fire. He will 
 be killed!" 
 
 "I don t think so ; not by my desire, at least. He 
 carries me. I ll care for him as if he were mine and 
 return him, no matter at what cost, just as he is" 
 and he added this after the horse was in motion 
 
 215 
 
THE VAGABOND 
 
 "except that you will observe that one of the stirrups 
 was on the wrong side and too short when I took 
 him." 
 
 And he heard her call him a brute as he dashed 
 down the drive. 
 
xxrn 
 
 WAB SHOULD BE IMPERSONAL 
 
 A brute ! He could not deny that his action war 
 ranted the description. Had words only been vouch 
 safed him to make her understand the situation 
 that the brazen assurance of the thief was for his 
 friends sake, not his own! 
 
 He realized, too, that his only favoring circum 
 stance was due to one of her charms, her love of out 
 door sport. If Tolly could not have taken a fence or 
 a gully he would have had to run past a half-com 
 pany that lay concealed by the road-side. When he 
 emerged from under the trees and saw the string of 
 gray figures stretching across the field, he thought 
 of the danger to the horse rather than to himself and 
 felt much as if a mother had given her child into his 
 care on a sinking ship. He took his cap in his hand 
 and bent over the saddle jockey fashion to hide his 
 tell-tale blue, whispering his very heart into the ear 
 of Folly, who ran as if death were at his heels. The 
 gray coats turned around on hearing the sound of 
 hoofs and looked at the flying rider in perplexity. 
 Was it an orderly with a message of great impor 
 tance ? If so, why was he not sitting erect ? A few 
 raised their rifles but put them down again, when 
 someone passed the word that the horse was Miss 
 Lanley s. 
 
 217 
 
THE VAGABOND 
 
 All this the Vagabond saw and understood, gloat 
 ing over every second of their hesitation as mean 
 ing many yards of advantage to him. Then he heard 
 one of them shout. His blue uniform had been rec 
 ognized. Before perception was turned into action 
 he was abreast of the line. He heard the reports of 
 three or four rifles as he swept past a private near 
 enough to have reached him with his sabre. He 
 knew that the greatest danger was yet to come, for 
 he would be under the fire of a hundred men until 
 he should pass out of range. 
 
 Then he did a thing that the girl ought to have 
 known. He sat erect so that the enemy would aim at 
 him instead of at Folly; and he was relieved by the 
 thought that excited marksmen firing in haste always 
 shoot high and by the assurance that if he fell his 
 bearer was too valuable a prisoner to be sacrificed. 
 Compliments went whispering by his ears; more of 
 them sang overhead; finally, came the unmistakable 
 croonings that tell of bullets whose energies are 
 spent. One of these dropped in front of Folly s head 
 into the earth with a plunk; and after that, though 
 the line still spit puff-balls of blue smoke, none sent 
 its messenger far enough. Laughing for joy over the 
 safety of his borrowed rescuer, he slapped the steam 
 ing bay s shoulder in gratitude, relief, triumph, and 
 apology. 
 
 As he pursued his way at a more leisurely gait, 
 he was not thinking of his good fortune in being in 
 time to warn his company or in having the map for 
 the General; or, above all, that he had done anything 
 clever or audacious. What else could he have done 
 (as he would have put it) ? He was thinking whether 
 
 218 
 
THE VAGABOND 
 
 she was most charming when she scornfully drew 
 away the hem of her gown, when she coolly de 
 manded his surrender at a pistol s muzzle, or when 
 she impulsively seized the reins to rescue her beloved 
 hunter. His conclusion was a composite picture that 
 made him more than ever determined to tell that 
 story oh, that silly, cherished story ! 
 
 Meanwhile, at every turning, he half expected to 
 see his men approaching. When he did see them, 
 they were not alone. Evidently the General s plans 
 had been changed and an attack in force was in prep 
 aration, for behind them in blue stretches on the 
 dusty background were infantry and artillery hang 
 ing after a hurried march in the suspense of a halt 
 before action. He heard his name and then huzzas. 
 Such was his fondness for his comrades, united to 
 him by love of adventure and true affection as well 
 as by enlistment, that in their common shout each 
 one seemed to be voicing his individual welcome with 
 the mighty throat of all. He lifted his cap and felt his 
 eyes grow moist. Joy blinded him for the moment 
 to General Huested s presence, which the General 
 promptly signified by riding forward and calling: 
 
 ""Have you got that map?" 
 
 "Yes, sir." 
 
 "Quick! Let me see it!" 
 
 It was so large that the Vagabond put the pieces 
 together on the sward by the road-side, while the 
 General, throwing himself on his knees, said, "Won 
 derful!" and nothing more, except to pound his fist 
 in the hollow of his hand, his favorite gesture, and 
 to ask acutely terse and practical questions in rapid 
 sequence, developing all that the Vagabond knew. 
 
 219 
 
THE VAGABOND 
 
 "Their advance means either that they thought 
 you d ride into the lion s mouth again/ he said, "or 
 that they are preparing to hold that hill, or, more 
 likely, it s a feint to attract us in force. I ll attack 
 as ordered." 
 
 There was a faint stress on "ordered," as if he 
 declined responsibility. 
 
 With the fist still pounding, came commands to 
 aides and regimental commanders, so fast and so me 
 chanical that they fairly seemed to click in rotation. 
 Every part of the force except the Vagabonds ac 
 counted for and set in motion, he began to fold up 
 those sheets of paper, as important to him as the rails 
 to a train, and spoke for the first time with some 
 thing of mess-table ease. 
 
 "Where did you learn to draw so well?" 
 
 "By drawing and observing, sir." 
 
 "Hm-m a pretty good wayl At some other time 
 I should like to hear how you got yourself out of that 
 pickle and how it was that you came riding back on 
 a lady s saddle as gayly as a troubadour. You still 
 have work to do to-day. I am going to dismount your 
 men and advance them on foot." 
 
 "On footl" He already had a cavalry-man s an 
 tipathy to this. 
 
 "Yes, in the centre of the line. You are to take 
 the Lanley house at any cost; to man it as you would 
 a fort; to hold it against all odds such are my or 
 ders. You have the best shots in the command. 
 Windows will furnish a rest for them to cover a wide 
 range. I will send a signal-man with you and you 
 will post him in the cupola immediately." 
 
 Though he knew that the Confederates if they 
 220 
 
THE VAGABOND 
 
 chose could reach the hill with a greater force first, 
 there was no suggestion in the General s tone that 
 the task assigned to the Vagabond was not feasible. 
 Hia creed, when you started to go, was to go as if 
 you had a direct order from the Almighty, the devil 
 was at your heels, and paradise lay within the enemy s 
 works. 
 
 "I d prefer something else, sir something else 
 equally dangerous." 
 
 "Why?" 
 
 "It s a fine old house and there s a girl in it 
 and her old grandfather." He hung his head and 
 began pulling blades of grass. "I don t like the idea 
 of firing on her or any woman." 
 
 The General regarded him narrowly and know 
 ingly. 
 
 "Miss Lanley is pretty, and clever, too, they say. 
 Hm-m! I presume it was her saddle-horse that you 
 rode back." 
 
 "Yes. I took it by force," 
 
 "She will not be there when you arrive. The Con 
 federates will see lier safely out of danger." 
 
 "I am sure that she will insist upon staying." 
 
 "She may say so, think so; but the sight of a line 
 of bayonets will change her mind." 
 
 "No, it will not" (doggedly). 
 
 The General was immensely pleased T^th the 
 Vagabond s morning work and he was inclined to 
 humor a dashing volunteer s vagaries; otherwise, he 
 would have put the Vagabond under arrest. 
 
 "You mean to contradict your superior, sir!" 
 
 "I stated an opinion, sir. I am here to obey or 
 ders, sir." 
 
THE VAGABOND 
 
 "Captain Williams, if every fine house with a fine 
 girl in it was made an isolated area, we should have 
 balls and tea-parties and not battles, and to stop a 
 charge you would need not guns but a drawing-room 
 and a girl. The bitterest secessionists are women, 
 and Miss Lanley will take care of herself. We shall 
 look after her property as if it were our own. How 
 ever, her house happens to be on an eminence ex 
 cellently suited for defensive operations. I should 
 post my guns in its grounds just the same if it were 
 the Executive Mansion in Washington. If your per 
 sonal feelings are so strong, I can send your com 
 pany without you, or I can assign another command 
 to that part of the line." 
 
 The Vagabond preferred this alternative in his 
 heart; but he knew that his men were only vaga 
 bonds, while some of the regiments on his own as 
 well as on the enemy s side, as is ever the case, were 
 vandals. If he went he could do as little with rifle- 
 fire, which is indiscriminate in its choice of victims, 
 and as much with the bayonet, which discerns its 
 enemy, as stern necessity would permit. 
 
 "I ll go, sir," he said. 
 
 "And you ll take the house at any cost?" 
 
 "At any cost, sir." He repeated the words "at 
 any cost," meaning any cost to himself. 
 
 "Refine it by all the processes you will, war is 
 brutal," the General added; "and the only way to 
 minimize its brutality is to make it impersonal and 
 impartial. Advance with your command at once!" 
 
 222 
 
XXIV 
 
 A TARGET FOB HEK SAKE 
 
 For the hastening of Mr. Lanley s end, clearly in 
 sight of his physician, the war was responsible. He 
 rode less, rose later, and sat up far into the night, 
 his sherry decanter at his elbow. 
 
 When the tramp of the Vagabonds partially awak 
 ened him, he dozed off again in the conviction that 
 young Southbridge was up at cock-crow sweeping 
 over the face of the land. When the Virginia Firsts 
 thundered through the yard he was wide awake. By 
 the time they returned, he had risen. Feebly step 
 ping to the window and pulling aside the curtain, 
 their yell in answer to Volilla s call for a cheer for 
 their commander assaulted his ears. 
 
 "In God s name, can t I get any peace!" he 
 growled. But his mood quickly changed. "Look at 
 them, the young Tigers ! Thank Heaven there is still 
 someone left in the old State worthy of the days of 
 Light Horse Harry Lee!" 
 
 He thought of dressing and going out to pay his 
 compliments. A twinge of gout sent him back to 
 bed and finally he fell asleep. Formerly, he had 
 tolerated Southbridge, whose manners were not his; 
 now he was fond of him. Their agreement was ve 
 hement on the one great question of the hour. Their 
 plan of campaign, as simple as Tim Booker s, in- 
 
 223 
 
THE VAGABOND 
 
 volved nothing less than the immediate occupation 
 of Washington. The very sight of the outpost placed 
 in front of his premises as a sop to his complaints 
 had sent Mr. Lanley into a fit of rage. Daily he had 
 anathematized it from the windows with warnings 
 not to risk its precious life by advancing a step. 
 
 His granddaughter had no relief from that solici 
 tude which saved him from his own acerbity except 
 her morning rides, stolen while he slept. Before she 
 departed with Mrs. Bulwer for the Confederate lines 
 she had listened again at his door and heard only the 
 sound of his deep breathing. When slumber did 
 overtake him, his age and exhaustion made him yield 
 completely. Not until the Vagabond was back in 
 the Union lines did he finally ring for Marcus 
 Aurelius to bring his boots. With Yolilla to pour 
 his coffee as usual, he sat down to breakfast, igno 
 rant of the events of the morning. When he was sip 
 ping the last half of his second cup, by easy ap 
 proaches she broached the news which she knew he 
 must learn sooner or later. Alas ! her artfulness was 
 in vain. He sprang to his feet, overturning his chair 
 and making the dishes on the table rattle. 
 
 "Yankee cavalry! Yankee cavalry has been in 
 these grounds!" he gasped. 
 
 "And a Yankee took Missy s hoss and made a map 
 frum de cup la. Yis, sah!" 
 
 Having had his climax, Marcus ran from the room 
 in terror. 
 
 "And I slept! And you did not tell me!" Mr. 
 Lanley cried. 
 
 His face was white; his figure had straightened to 
 an attitude of youth, and his eyes were flaming, No 
 
 224 
 
THE VAGABOND 
 
 protest about the physician s warning could stay him: 
 for the first time in months he mounted the stairs 
 without a hand on the railing and kept on with firm 
 step to the cupola itself. There he saw the thin line 
 of the Confederates like a dotted tracing on a map, 
 and beyond it the Federals spreading out from col 
 umns into skirmish order, in the manner of so many 
 fans, slowly opening until they were quite extended 
 and their edges joined. Himself a soldier in his 
 youth, he understood the meaning of this, and put 
 ting aside the boastings of wine-heated conversation 
 he realized the all-supreme relative value of numbers. 
 
 "Tell your commander that we can t stand against 
 that any more than you can dam a river with a fish 
 net!" he called to the signal-man, "and tell him I said 
 so 7 said so, Mortimer Lanley, the owner of Lan- 
 leyton!" 
 
 Letter by letter the message was sent, and letter 
 by letter came the laconic, unsentimental, war-time 
 answer : 
 
 "The General considers the situation satisfactory." 
 
 So it was. The Confederate commander had de 
 pleted not reinforced the guns and men sent out to 
 trap a company of cavalry. When his scouts ascer 
 tained that an attack was to be made in force, he had 
 no desire other than to make the hill seem valuable 
 to the Federals ; to hold as many of them as he could 
 there, while the troops that occupied the camp near 
 Lanleyton were engaged in the battle of the morrow. 
 
 And now Mr. Lanley became strangely cool and 
 savagely so. First, he had Marcus bring his sport 
 ing-rifle; then a glass and a bottle of his oldest, his 
 32 port. He enjoyed the bouquet with a connois- 
 
 225 
 
THE VAGABOND 
 
 seur s nice deliberation and drank a glass with a 
 steadier hand than he had known for ten years. 
 
 "Marcus," he said, evenly, "take your post in the 
 cellar! When my countrymen desert their land and 
 their honor, throw out the bottles, the oldest first. 
 No shirt-sleeves Yankee shall taste my wine 1" 
 "T row t row-ow it out, Massa !" 
 "Yes, and don t stand there gaping!" 
 Marcus departed. What purpose was there in his 
 objections when the mistress s had failed? To all that 
 she said as she stood at Mr Lanley s side he was as 
 oblivious as if she did not exist, until, finally, he 
 turned to her and said: 
 
 "Mean? What do I mean, Yolilla? I mean that 
 there is one Virginian who is going to fight ! I won t 
 leave the land my fathers fought for. I ll have a life 
 or two in return for mine. Oh, I know you, you shirt 
 sleeves! You have ever made the errors of others 
 your tearful story; your nose is too close to your 
 porridge to see your own. You drove Roger Will 
 iams out of Connecticut; you persecuted the Quak 
 ers ; you lied with pious faces in praying tones to the 
 Indians ; you burned poor, helpless women as witches ! 
 So you re fit to rule us and reform us! Fit to in 
 vade Virginia, which gave you your freedom after 
 your slinking, thieving quartermasters were ready to 
 go on their knees to the enemy and your Congress 
 men polluted the air of Philadelphia with slanders 
 of Washington ! Who wrote the Declaration of Inde 
 pendence? Who wrote the Constitution? Slave 
 holders! Who wanted to secede in 1812 in the face 
 of a foreign enemy? You shirt-sleeved robbers, I ll 
 have one shot at you!" 
 
THE VAGABOND 
 
 Again begging him to go below, Yolilla put her 
 nand on his arm coaxingly, a method that she had 
 tried in vain that day for the first time. A puff of 
 smoke rose from the trees where Bulwer s guns were 
 posted, a booming report broke the summer stillness, 
 and a shell bursting near the Federal line made it 
 bend a little as if it were a long tape caught by a 
 sudden gust of wind ; then it straightened and seemed 
 to grow taut as if it was prepared for a hurricane. 
 With precision and automatic regularity Bulwer s 
 iron pets kept on pounding. He was as happy as a 
 boy in a ball-game and as cool and rigid as an icicle. 
 He watched the result of every shell, passed a word 
 after it to the gunners, and counted the blue pins 
 which tumbled. The Confederate infantry fired and 
 fell back, fired and fell back, in the good order of a 
 feint mixed with the individual resentment of a few 
 who lagged behind the others and took careful aim 
 in expression of their contempt and as much as to 
 say that they were going only because they were told 
 to, not at all because they had to. When they left 
 Bulwer without support and the Federals were get 
 ting dangerously near, he brought off his battery at 
 the gallop, having done his work so skilfully that it 
 seemed no more than a playful manoeuvre. 
 
 Mr. Lanley drained his bottle and, kneeling with 
 rifle on the railing of the platform, waited until he 
 was sure that the enemy was in range. As they hast 
 ened forward, the Federals were delivering them 
 selves of a scattering fire, all save a small section im 
 mediately in front of the house,, A close view would 
 have shown this to be composed of dismounted cav 
 alry. It was conspicuous for another reason, one 
 
 227 
 
THE VAGABOND 
 
 which its silent rifles permitted ; one which had awak 
 ened in Bulwer, whose undisturbed gaze missed noth 
 ing, admiration and amazement, and in General 
 Huested (riding up and down in the rear of his com 
 mand) admiration and condemnation for its fool- 
 hardiness. The Vagabond was several yards in ad 
 vance of his men, insuring the silence of their rifles 
 with his own flesh as a barrier of protection to the 
 Lanley house. 
 
 "You are mine!" Mr. Lanley said, softly. "Pm as 
 sure of you as if you were a deer on a hillock." 
 
 With hand abnormally steady and eye abnormally 
 clear, he took careful aim. The ball kicked up the 
 dust at its object s feet. 
 
 "I didn t allow enough for my elevation," he said, 
 as he fired again. 
 
 There was no evidence of where the bullet had 
 struck. The Vagabond still came on with the limita 
 tions of his speed and the seeming certainty of fate. 
 
 "Over!" said the marksman. "The third will do 
 it; just between the other two." 
 
 This kicked up the dust beyond and a little to the 
 right of the Vagabond. 
 
 "The wind!" Mr. Lanley snapped out the word 
 savagely. "I ll allow for that this time, too." 
 
 All the while the target was getting nearer. You 
 could see the flash of his belt-clasp in the sun, now. 
 Mr. Lanley smiled as mercilessly as the steel barrel 
 whose sight lay on the figure that sprang up on a 
 little hillock; and in the second that he was a blue 
 silhouette against the sky, the bullet was sped toward 
 the victim, who threw up his hands, whirled half 
 round with the impact, and fell. 
 
 228 
 
THE VAGABOND 
 
 His comrades abruptly halted, as if with his the 
 heart of the charge stopped beating also, and their 
 fallen leader was obscured in a group no sooner 
 formed than it spread into line again under the fierce 
 direction of oath-roaring Tim and sharp-worded Jim 
 my. It sprang ahead, leaving a blue spot on the 
 sward and began firing with a revengeful will. Vo- 
 lilla heard the bullets thripping through the branches 
 of the trees with the peculiar sound that an old 
 soldier would recognize instantly in the quietest 
 garden cloister,, Mr. Lanley heard nothing. Voicing 
 his triumph with a cry that there was one invader 
 less, he had reloaded his rifle and was about to take 
 aim when he saw the stricken man rise and, stagger 
 ing a little, in the manner of one who has been 
 stunned, soon find his feet and, catching up with his 
 men, stop their firing and once more take his place 
 at their head. 
 
 Mr. Lanley dropped his rifle as if he had seen an 
 apparition. All his careful shooting had gone for 
 naught. His coolness and deliberation passed into in 
 sane rage. He made his way down the stairs in a 
 fever of haste, stumbling many times but not falling, 
 and crying as he went: 
 
 "This comes of the great State of Virginia putting 
 herself in the hands of Beauregard of a little 
 Frenchman from E"ew Orleans!" 
 
 At the door he heard the triumphant cries of the 
 Vagabonds, who ran with their bayonets as stiffly 
 held as the quills of a porcupine. The Confederates 
 were no longer feigning; they were falling back in 
 deadly earnest. Mr. Lanley s last spasmodic effort in 
 life was to try to rally them : 
 
 229 
 
THE VAGABOND 
 
 "Are you men or are you pickaninnies?" he 
 shouted. "Stand! stand, and they ll stop! they ll 
 stop!" 
 
 If the runners heard, with the roar of musketry 
 in their ears and bullets from other parts of the Fed 
 eral line whistling near, they did not heed. Mr. Lan- 
 ley plunged headlong upon the gravel of the drive 
 on the very spot where from boyhood he had mounted 
 his horse to ride forth and survey his domain. 
 
 Volilla, who had followed, saw the blood trickling 
 from a wound in his side. She leaned over him and 
 put her handkerchief to the spot. The handkerchief 
 grew red as quickly as a sponge saps up water. 
 
 "It wasn t one of our shots." 
 
 She looked up on hearing these words spoken in a 
 voice of great relief to the speaker s self as much as 
 to her. The Vagabond was standing beside her, a 
 trickling red streak on his cheek; his men were rush 
 ing by in the tumult of chase. She made no reply. 
 He bent down, putting his own handkerchief over 
 hers helplessly. Mr. Lanley opened his lips feebly. 
 
 "There was a French nobleman in the Revolution 
 who when he saw the inevitable was he invited his 
 peasants to a banquet and blew chateau and all to 
 kingdom come. I I had no gunpowder. Trust 
 trust yourself to Southbridge! Thank God, there s 
 still one of the old school " 
 
 There his words died in his throat. A medical of 
 ficer who came hastening at the sight of a casualty 
 knelt and found that his skill was powerless. Shock 
 had killed Mr. Lanley before loss of blood could. 
 
 "I knew it," Volilla said, slowly, as she rose to hor 
 feet. 
 
 230 
 
THE VAGABOND 
 
 She loo ked around for a servant, not wishing, such 
 was her grief and anger, to ask the least favor from 
 the invader. The Vagabond understood. He and 
 three of his men lifted the body gently. With her 
 leading, they carried him upstairs to his own room, 
 where they laid him on the bed. The men tiptoed out 
 in silence and awe, leaving the two alone with the 
 dead. He felt himself held by a desire for forgiveness 
 for the part he had played in this tragedy, yet know 
 ing that no words to express it would be forthcoming. 
 As he looked at the face below him, with the high 
 nose, its cartilage showing white, the mouth set in a 
 proud curve, the silvery hair in disorder, he thought 
 of his own father and recognized in the two some 
 thing in common. He closed the eyes, crossed the 
 withered hands, and tried to straighten out the coat, 
 with a sense of gratitude for some occupation, while 
 he still groped for an expression of his overwhelming 
 sympathy and regret. "When he raised his head, Miss 
 Lanley was standing still in the middle of the room, 
 and in the agony of her face he saw plainly enough 
 that she waited on his departure. 
 
 "He was a brave old man/ he said, slowly, as if 
 trying to make the words convey all he felt. 
 
 "I need no Yankee to tell me that," she replied. 
 "He was my grandfather. I have neither father nor 
 mother nor brother nor sister." He bowed his head. 
 "All I ask is this room," she continued. "The rest 
 is yours." 
 
 "I I understand," he said; and with that he left 
 her, still dry-eyed, to her grief. 
 
 "Not an order but awe held his men s curiosity in 
 leash. None except those who bore the body had 
 
 231 
 
THE VAGABOND 
 
 entered the house. The Vagabond, having this fear 
 in mind, made a search. In the dining-room he found 
 Aikens, who had long looked forward to the day 
 when, hanging onto a column of soldiers, he should 
 see his old employer humiliated. The green face 
 took on a deeper shade as he was made to empty his 
 pockets of silver; then, in the impatience of disgust, 
 his captor seized him by the coat-collar and in the 
 presence of grinning soldiers pump-handled him out 
 of the house, bidding him go to the rear on pain of 
 something worse. And Aikens was one who never 
 forgot. 
 
 As the flying skirt of a linen duster disappeared 
 under the trees, his troopers gathered around their 
 Captain with comments droll and congratulatory. 
 When the doctor called for water to dress his 
 wound, all started on the errand. When the blood 
 was washed away, only the track of bare skull left 
 by a glancing ball remained. 
 
 "What your little lieutenant wants to know," said 
 Tim Booker, "is whether you wasn t killed because 
 you nodded in the nick of time or because you 
 didn t." 
 
 "Dodged it, of course. If ever you see one com 
 ing, you do the same or you ll be sorry, Timothy." 
 
 He held the privacy of the old house as sacred as 
 that of any emperor s closet. There was no need of 
 turning it into a fort when there was no enemy in 
 sight. Through the rest of the morning and the after 
 noon no one passed the guards and no sound came 
 from the interior, save the occasional foot-fall of a 
 servant. For him the minutes were hours. His real 
 ization of her agony was only less horrible than the 
 
 232 
 
THE VAGABOND 
 
 conviction that he could do nothing to ease it. "When 
 she startled him by appearing in the door-way, he was 
 pacing up and down under the trees. She did not 
 seem to be speaking to him, but to someone miles 
 away, as she asked for permission to bury her grand 
 father. 
 
 The soldiers dug the grave. Beyond that, she re 
 fused all assistance, even a military salute, which the 
 Vagabond offered. At some other time, when there 
 were friends present, there should be a ceremony, 
 she told herself. "Wrapped in a Confederate flag of 
 her making, the body was borne by the servants and 
 lowered to its resting-place, while the Vagabonds, 
 officers and men, stood in a circle at some distance, 
 silent, with heads bared. As she turned away, her 
 face, because her eyes were still dry, was the more 
 expressive of the depth of her proud and controlled 
 misery. 
 
 She came direct to where the Vagabond was stand 
 ing and asked if she might be conducted to the Con 
 federate lines. He assented, without thought that 
 she might carry information to the enemy. Her 
 own horse, his accoutrements intact and still watched 
 by the orderly, was brought to the door. She started 
 at sight of her beloved Folly; gave his neck a fond 
 stroke ; said, "Thank you for bringing him," without 
 looking up ; refused the Union hand that was offered, 
 and called for Marcus to assist her to mount. The 
 Vagabond himself, under a white flag, rode beside 
 her toward the valley. For some time they pro 
 ceeded in silence, which she at last broke. 
 
 "I must tell you it s right I should," she said. 
 "I am going because I know my grandfather would 
 
 233 
 
THE VAGABOND. 
 
 wish it. I think our brave fellows might desist from 
 attacking on my account. I do not wish to be in the 
 way of their duty. They must know that they 
 may burn the house and raze the very trees to the 
 ground if it will enable them to win a victory." 
 
 This explained why she had hastened her grand 
 father s burial. It showed the quality of the woman 
 and, measurably, the quality of her race; it told the 
 Vagabond again how wisely he had chosen. 
 
 "I am glad you are going, if you wish to go/ he 
 said. 
 
 A solitary horseman came riding rapidly out to 
 meet them, as if he feared that the white flag might 
 get near enough to the camp to discern that only a 
 rear-guard of cavalry now defended it. The Vaga 
 bond drew rein and awaited him. The two saluted 
 stiffly. 
 
 "This lady wishes to enter the Confederate lines," 
 the Vagabond said. 
 
 "Very well," was Southbridge s reply. 
 
 Southbridge saluted stiffly. The Vagabond sa 
 luted stiffly. Volilla rode to Southbridge s side and 
 impulsively put her hand on his arm. She was among 
 friends again, and it looked as if her sorrow would 
 find an outlet in tears and her head would go upon 
 the shoulder of the one to whose care her grandfa 
 ther s dying words had intrusted her. But her figure 
 straightened and she recovered her reserve. 
 
 "Oh, I d like to have ridden through and through 
 you! My General kept me back here," Southbridge 
 called, in his bitter wrath. "I shall cross sabres with 
 you yet!" 
 
 "I long for the pleasure," said the Vagabond. 
 
 They saluted again and faced about. 
 234 
 
XXV 
 
 FATHER BOB ILLUSTRATES 
 
 While Yolilla was sobbing in the arms of Mrs. Bul- 
 wer, the Vagabonds, under orders which awaited 
 their Captain on his return, were leaving Lanleyton 
 to the care of a regiment of infantry. Shortly before 
 dusk they found General Huested on another road, 
 the direct road from Washington to the battle-field 
 of Bull Run. He sat on a fence-rail watching the 
 passage of troops, who promised themselves that after 
 the fight of the morrow they could meander on to 
 Richmond and end the "rebellion." The Vagabond, 
 who had wondered, as his company rode single file at 
 one side of the marching column, why everyone 
 looked at him so sharply, realized the cause when 
 the General mentioned the bandage that encircled 
 his head. Twenty-four hours later a wounded man 
 was not a curiosity; and he was not to be for four 
 years to come. 
 
 "Fresh and ready for work, eh ?" said the General. 
 "Well, I have it for you. I want you to join me as 
 aide to-morrow." 
 
 After training his men for months against the 
 day when they should gallop across a plain plying 
 their sabres, he was to be made an errand-boy! Such 
 was his view, at least. 
 
 "I d rather rather fight, sir." 
 235 
 
THE VAGABOND 
 
 "Oh, you ll have a whiff of powder, don t you 
 worry more than you ll have back there guarding 
 trains; for that will be the lot of the horsemen to 
 
 morrow." 
 
 "What!" 
 
 The word came in a piercing, nasal shriek from 
 Tim Booker, who nearly fell on his horse s mane in 
 disappointment. It was a most unmilitary interrup 
 tion, which six months before in the regulars would 
 have brought trouble to the speaker from that same 
 General who now received it good-humoredly. 
 
 "You wait, my son. There s going to be enough 
 bruises in this war to accommodate everybody" and 
 the General cut short his sentence for fear that the 
 men should hear the opinion of an officer who knew 
 his enemy. "You wait," he added. 
 
 "I m waiting and growing gray, and mebbe when 
 I m too old to put a foot in a stirrup I ll get a chance 
 to draw my sabre," Tim remarked, in an undertone; 
 while to Jimmy Pool he grumbled on: "That king 
 of France who marched his men up a hill and down 
 
 again wasn t such a d n fool after all. He learned 
 
 something by experience. History don t record that 
 he marched em up and down three or four times, 
 like we ve been doing!" 
 
 At the General s dictation Lieutenant Maxim 
 wrote out Acting Captain Jimmy Pool s orders for 
 the morrow. Then the staff mounted. As it rode 
 forward, the Vagabond turned and waved his hand 
 in farewell to his men and they replied with swing 
 ing caps and a hurrah. 
 
 Ahead of them and behind them was the dusty 
 blue column winding with the road, and in their ears 
 
 236 
 
THE VAGABOND 
 
 the clink of canteens and the plunk of feet in the hot 
 dust. Dust, dust, dust! The very cloud of it over 
 head hung in the still air as if in suspense over the is 
 sue of the morrow. Here was a good regiment and 
 there a bad one, thanks to the popularity of militia 
 service in the section from which it was drawn, to 
 locality itself and to the character of its officers. One 
 in particular instantly held attention as it approached 
 because its caps were red and not of the regulation 
 pattern. It marched slouchily, grudgingly, as a tru 
 ant going to school under personal conduct. Its time 
 had expired that night and it had a mind to turn in 
 its tracks and go home, not out of cowardice but out 
 of homesickness, cussedness, and belief that it had 
 been ill treated. The most erect one of the lot 
 marched in the rear, keeping stragglers in line. To 
 these men, whom he had drilled without prejudice, he 
 was known as "Granddad," "Drill- em Granddad." 
 Looking at his back, only the rim of white hair un 
 der his cap revealed his age. The General and his 
 new aide recognized him at the same instant. 
 
 "Captain Herrick!" exclaimed the General. "I 
 know of one regiment that will do its duty to-mor 
 row." 
 
 "And it please God, yes, sir." 
 
 The voice was firm enough, though the hand that 
 he raised to his cap trembled with the physical strain 
 that his will made his flesh bear. 
 
 "A man of your years ought not to be on foot," 
 said the General, indignantly. "Haven t you a 
 horse?" 
 
 "Yes, sir. Only I m just demonstrating to my 
 men that twenty miles s no march at all." 
 
 237 
 
THE VAGABOND 
 
 "For that matter, Captain, you re not supposed to 
 be out here, anyway. You have done your share in 
 by-gone days. You are supposed to drill these men, 
 not to fight them. Your assignment is purely auxil 
 iary. But I understand. You may be worth a regi 
 ment to-morrow, and I am too selfish to send you 
 back." 
 
 "Yes, sir. I hope to steady em a leetle." 
 
 The Vagabond had dismounted, and while the 
 General spoke he seemed as much a stranger to 
 Father Bob as the rest of the staff. He saw that the 
 Captain had grown older, thinner, whiter, in the 
 week since they had met. When the General passed 
 on, he put his arms around the old man. 
 
 "Don t go ! Don t go ! I ll do enough fighting for 
 the family," he pleaded. 
 
 "I owe it to my God and my country to see this 
 regiment through its baptism. Come, son, we 
 mustn t wait. You must catch up with the General, 
 and I with my boys." 
 
 Their last words to each other were warnings to be 
 careful. They did not meet again until the next day 
 when the battle had been in progress for some time. 
 
 Through the smoke, to guns that flashed fire in the 
 blue darkness, to lines that sagged and to lines that 
 were advancing with shouts, and back again to his 
 General, the Vagabond had been kept on the gallop. 
 Occasionally passing out of the theatre of action he 
 had a glimpse of the road swollen with the tide of 
 human beings. Congressmen had come to give tho 
 boys from their districts the cheer of their presence ; 
 officials had brought their wives. Every available 
 carriage in "Washington was mixed with the supply 
 
 238 
 
THE VAGABOND 
 
 wagons, while the slightly wounded and the explan 
 atory sick bore news in exchange for sympathy. It 
 was a crowd waiting for the army to open the gates 
 a simple matter so it could see the spectacle of 
 Richmond once more in loyal hands. With the ru 
 mor of success creeping and dodging back from the 
 roaring and rattling clouds in front, it pressed for 
 ward with individual desire for good seats. Then, 
 out of the clouds, came men and guns, flying with no 
 purpose except flight, and the onlookers in front were 
 caught between two forces, just as when the police 
 clear the way for a parade. 
 
 At this juncture, General Huested, seeming a part 
 of his horse and his horse seeming a part of the earth 
 beneath its feet, surveyed the field and grasped the 
 situation. Upon his brigade, his green brigade, de 
 pended the line of communication. He turned his 
 attention to the two regiments on his left. On the 
 right he had Captain Herrick and the Red Caps, and 
 he sent the Vagabond to tell the Captain to hold out 
 at any cost until reinforcements should be brought 
 up. The Red Caps were on a ridge which bent slight 
 ly toward the road, but not presenting any range for 
 a cross-fire. Bare-headed, under the terrific sun of 
 that famous July day, Captain Herrick was walking 
 up and down, exposing his whole person; and he was 
 talking in the same manner that he walked jauntily, 
 with the oblivious air of optimism of a man smok 
 ing a cigar after a good dinner. He had neither 
 sword nor revolver; his weapon was the men hug 
 ging the ground at his feet, which he handled with 
 a fencing-master s skill. 
 
 "Shooting clean over us! Pipped a few, that s 
 239 
 
THE VAGABOND 
 
 true; one out of fifty, mebbe. That isn t war! That s 
 Fourth of July ! Take your time ; shoot low. Pretty 
 soon they re going to charge. They ll look big and 
 they ll yell hard, but they ll be just our marks; yes, 
 sir, just our apple-pie ! You ve only got to lie steady 
 and you ll lie here all day travelling s hard work 
 in such a hot sun, anyway and in the evening we ll 
 go out and help bury those buckies. Hello! That 
 officer went down ! One of our dandy Jims sent his 
 horse out to graze. Looks like a good horse, too. 
 Guess I know a man that won t have to walk to-mor 
 row." 
 
 A big hoarse-voiced private sprang up and seized 
 hold of the Captain hysterically. 
 
 "By G !" he cried. "I m not going to see you 
 shot all to pieces. You ve got to get down-n-n !" 
 
 The words were scarcely spoken when a bullet 
 passed through his head, leaving him to fall as the 
 woodsman s axe leaves the tree. 
 
 "There!" said Father Bob, "didn t I tell you so, 
 boys? Let the fellows over there get up and we ll 
 fix em quick enough if we just lie close and shoot 
 straight. 79 
 
 One charge had been repelled, and the Confed 
 erates were preparing for a second, to which they 
 proposed to bring more men and an extended line. 
 Under cover, on the very flank of the Red Caps, the 
 Vagabond could see the gleaming bayonets in wait 
 for the word which, in their sure estimate, was to 
 finish the business. A gust of wind driving the smoke 
 away, their leader saw the guidon of his own troop 
 fluttering not a thousand yards away. He put his 
 lips to Captain Herrick s ear. 
 
 240 
 
THE VAGABOND 
 
 "For God s sake, yes!" was the whispered reply. 
 "They re bound to crumple up like paper. I m only 
 trying to keep em steady so I can bring em to that 
 hill back there in order. No, no! Don t! It s 
 suicide. It s only a drop of water on the flames." 
 
 The Vagabond did not wait for him to finish the 
 sentence. He was all aglow with a clear, definite ob 
 ject. ~No general would have undertaken to order 
 him where he was about to go, into the very jaws of 
 death, with every tooth a point of fire. The concep 
 tion was worthy of the boy who wanted to climb a 
 mountain and find a mine; of a vagabond and a 
 dreamer, confidently falling in love with a Confed 
 erate girl. 
 
 241 
 
XXVI 
 
 BULLETS HAVE NO SENTIMENT 
 
 With the battle roaring in front of them poor, 
 Starving wretches outside the banquet-room window 
 the Vagabonds, chafing in their inaction, their 
 sweat turning dust into grime, had kept their place 
 on the line of communication. Every man of them 
 was a physical apotheosis of dust and enforced idle 
 ness. Jimmy Pool had been heard to make one re 
 mark besides orders that morning. This he repeated 
 several times. He seemed to unroll the word which 
 began with II from a spool of gall. 
 
 Among those who had carriages was Miss Felicia 
 Hope, of the Sanitary Commission, perched on a car 
 go of delicacies and bandages. She turned red at the 
 sight of a trooper who was squatted on the ground 
 with his reins over his forearm. 
 
 "Good-morning, Judge!" she called. 
 
 He lifted his cap, and after a swift look of recog 
 nition and surprise settled back to the exclusiveness 
 of the ranks. 
 
 "Good-morning, ma am," he remarked, pleasantly. 
 
 For the first time when they met, Miss Felicia and 
 not the Judge was flustered. 
 
 "How thin you ve grown!" she exclaimed. 
 
 "Yes, ma am. Thirty pounds. That was my ora 
 torical part; entirely superfluous. Ask the horse!" 
 came the short sentences of the one-time rhetorician. 
 
THE VAGABOND 
 
 "Are you quite well ?" 
 
 "Perfectly. Hide thirty miles and feel nothing 
 except an appetite." 
 
 She could not help seeing that he was handsomer 
 from the change; and there he sat, immovable, tan 
 talizing, inconsiderate. 
 
 "I have some cake. Perhaps you would like a 
 piece," she ventured, 
 
 "No, thank you, ma am. ~N"ot used to luxuries! 
 Don t like em now!" 
 
 He took his stubby clay pipe and filled it and, hav 
 ing fished out a dirty match from his pocket, lighted 
 the tobacco and blew a huge puff of smoke with most 
 earthly satisfaction. 
 
 "Have you taken to smoking a clay pipe?" she 
 asked, in surprise. 
 
 "Yes, ma am. This one s just ripe. I sleep with 
 it under my saddle every night for fear the other 
 fellows ll hook it." 
 
 "O-oh!" she gasped. "Where is the Vagabond? 
 I don t see him." 
 
 "The Vagabond, ma am?" 
 
 "You know who I mean. Captain "Williams !" she 
 replied, gingerly. 
 
 "He s not with the command, ma am. Privates 
 are not supposed to ask where their officers go." 
 
 "My! How you have changed!" she cried, in a 
 temper. 
 
 "Yes, ma am." 
 
 "I suppose you re sorry enough now that you en 
 listed?" 
 
 "No, ma am. I like this kind of life when the 
 boys don t hook my pipe. I m very fond of that, 
 
 2i3 
 
THE VAGABOND 
 
 ma am. I let Hosea Pillsbury, my bunkie, smoke it 
 in return for helping watch it. Hosea s quit drinking 
 entirely. Says he never would have drunk at all if 
 he d known there was a pipe in the world like this." 
 
 She pressed her lips lest she should say something 
 for which she would be sorry. 
 
 "Lieutenant Pool is commanding, then?" she man 
 aged to say. 
 
 "Yes, ma am." He nodded toward Jimmy and 
 touched his hat disinterestedly. 
 
 Jimmy, it has already been observed, was not in a 
 jovial humor. When she asked where was the best 
 place for the distribution of her delicacies, he replied: 
 
 "Washington, ma am." 
 
 "Brute!" she said, and bade her driver proceed. 
 
 "No, ma am. I can t let one of your sex go any 
 farther," Jimmy said. 
 
 The sight of a fellow with his handkerchief around 
 his fingers straggling to the rear with faint account 
 of a great victory led her to accept the inevitable. 
 Though he had had only the skin braised, he got a 
 huge piece of sponge-cake and a bottle of ginger-ale, 
 the while he told how the rebels ran and he avoided 
 the searching gray eyes of Jimmy Pool. 
 
 Thus, all Miss Felicia s delicacies went to the fast- 
 travelling, over-happy ones heroes she called them 
 who had a scratch on the extremities, not always 
 made by a bullet, either. She had none left for the 
 fellows with real wounds and the comatose burdens 
 of litters which came still later. The panorama be 
 fore her swiftly picturing sinister truths, she began 
 to realize the horror of righting wrongs with the 
 sword, which knows only skill and power. Furtively, 
 
 244 
 
THE VAGABOND 
 
 the Judge watched her every movement as, nervous, 
 trembling, and yet cool, she flew from one victim to 
 another, praying, whispering peace, and doing all that 
 a woman could to assist a surgeon on the battle-field. 
 She fairly hated Jimmy Pool (languidly sitting on 
 a stump). Had he not warned her to keep her good 
 ies for a better cause? And weren t there dying men 
 of high courage crying for water, with emptied soda 
 and ginger-ale bottles lying about, while the skulkers 
 who had drunk their fill were meandering on out of 
 danger s reach expectorating tobacco-juice by the 
 way? 
 
 Meanwhile, Jimmy had been as practical as ever. 
 He had her carriage turned about facing Washing 
 ton. When he saw the road at the edge of the wall 
 of smoke swelling like a bladder, he understood what 
 that meant and approached Miss Felicia. 
 
 "I advise you to go, ma am," he said. "We re be 
 ing driven back." 
 
 "Driven back!" she exclaimed. Her righteous 
 cause being driven back! Driven back, when they 
 were to have been in Richmond in a week ! 
 
 "Yes, ma am. Somebody has to be. The Con 
 federates have more men, or they are doing better 
 work than we are to-day. War s a great science and 
 war s also hell, I m sorry to say." Jimmy did not 
 mean to be rude. He was thick with disgust, which 
 influenced his well-intentioned explanation. 
 
 "I won t!" Miss Felicia cried, and went on taking 
 the death-bed message of a fine, blue-eyed Massachu 
 setts boy who thought that he was dying, but who 
 was to live to fight in other battles. 
 
 "Then we ll wait a moment, ma am," Jimmy re- 
 
THE .VAGABOND 
 
 marked, respectfully, judging the while by the ap 
 proach of the inflated part of the road. 
 
 Directly, something passed over their heads with a 
 whish and buried itself in the ground beyond them. 
 The next one broke and killed actually killed a 
 skulker. Jimmy stepped over to the Judge and spoke 
 a matter-of-fact word or two. The Judge ran to Miss 
 Felicia, who had looked up on hearing the crack of 
 the bursting shell and then gone on easing the posi 
 tion of a man on a stretcher. At that moment she 
 was divinely feminine in her courage. If he realized 
 this he did not say so. He merely observed : 
 
 "It s time, ma am." 
 
 "I won t!" she cried back. 
 
 "Then I ll carry you!" 
 
 He advanced a step; she saw that he would be as 
 good as his word. 
 
 "You sha n t !" she cried, and ran to her carriage. 
 
 The instant she was seated, the driver put the whip 
 to the horses. 
 
 On his part, the Judge heard the call to mount. 
 In their rigid formation four deep, the Vagabonds 
 were the only stable living thing on the road. The 
 sight of them sitting their horses so steadily was 
 cooling to fevered brains that pictured the world in 
 chaos. Jimmy Pool was in the act of spinning out 
 the little word beginning with H, when he saw his 
 leader flying toward them, and his face suddenly 
 lighted with glorious joy. He understood the mean 
 ing of the madly waved cap before he could hear the 
 Vagabond s voice. The men understood, too. With 
 common impulse, they wheeled into line. 
 
 2-1 6 
 
XXVII 
 
 AT LAST A CHARGE 
 
 A charge ! A charge ! Cavalry-men live in thought 
 of it and die unsatisfied, thinking of what they would 
 have done if they had had the opportunity. When 
 it comes it is like having one great draught of cham 
 pagne in a lifetime, so quickly is it over, so thrilling 
 is ito The mimic thing of the parade-ground is a meal 
 off plates without food. 
 
 The Vagabonds had spread out until the sabre-tip 
 of one rider could not reach that of another. The 
 horses themselves had caught the fever of expecta 
 tion and their nostrils dilated as the imaginations of 
 their riders soared. From the distance came the 
 yell that said that the Confederates had sprung from 
 cover to the assault. Their footsteps were ticking 
 off the time until they should hold the Red Caps pris 
 oners or, gasping for breath from their run, gloat 
 ingly make the backs of the Red Caps targets. 
 
 All the Vagabonds hearts rose gleefully to the 
 occasion save one ; all had no sense of fear, no thought 
 of the result, save one, and that was you, you big, 
 hulking, bewhiskered miner, Tim Booker ! He could 
 feel his legs knocking nervously against his horse s 
 sides ; to steady his hands he seized the pommel. He 
 laughed hysterically; the tears ran down his cheeks, 
 and his voice, rising to a high tremolo, broke. 
 
 "Oh, God Almighty! Why did I ever leave the 
 24-7 
 
THE VAGABOND 
 
 peace of the eternal hills of California!" he called. 
 "We ll all be butchered, killed, and slaughtered! 
 There s eleven million rebels waiting to swallow us 
 alive!" 
 
 Thus he bawled his fears till, reaching the rising 
 ground, they saw the hurrying gray figures in a long 
 line before them, running with the precipitation of 
 men hastening from a mine about to explode. Haste 
 meant safety to them ; haste to reach the enemy s posi 
 tion. A bullet whistling near Tim s ear suddenly 
 changed the face of the world for him. His legs 
 stiffened in the stirrups; he felt the strength of Her 
 cules in his arm. 
 
 "Slash em! Mince em! Chop em! Eat em up!" 
 he yelled. "We re cannibals, savage cannibals! Eat 
 em up! Eat em up!" 
 
 To the General, now hastening toward the right 
 with reinforcements of reformed men struggling 
 somewhere behind him, that charge seemed nothing 
 more nor less than jumping off the earth with the 
 chance of alighting safely on a star. 
 
 "They ll simply be gobbled up, that s all," he 
 thought, "and thank God for a desperate stroke of 
 genius that will give us a little breathing-space." 
 Then he bade the last member of his staff with him 
 to go back and help the others to curse and pray with 
 and wheedle the reinforcements anything to get 
 them up. 
 
 Not facing but at right angles to it, the Vagabonds 
 were precipitated from the rising ground against the 
 Confederate infantry. The position was much the 
 same as if a line of mounted police descended upon 
 scattered people all intent upon crossing the street; 
 
 248 
 
THE VAGABOND 
 
 only these people were determined men with rifles 
 and bayonets. The charge came upon them with the 
 shock and surprise of a wire stretched across the path 
 of a pedestrian at night. They turned with the rage 
 of one suddenly balked of his prize. In that instant, 
 when the Red Caps had ceased to fire and had risen 
 to cheer the appearance of deliverance unexpected, 
 the Confederates heard the tumult of hoofs inter 
 mingled with the booming of field guns and saw 
 foaming nostrils over their heads. Each man became 
 an absolute unit again, dodging, shooting, or thrust 
 ing, while the Vagabonds, as they rode, looked down 
 on faces all forgetful of corps in that vital second, 
 all murderously keen upon self-preservation. Steel 
 blades whistled through the air, sometimes encoun 
 tering steel, sometimes finding flesh, and again rising 
 to another blow without resistance. Horses stumbled 
 and fell, throwing their riders overhead into the arms 
 of an enemy, the host being as surprised as the guest. 
 Horses with empty saddles rode on in the mad com 
 panionship of havoc that knows no morrows, that 
 cares for nothing except the thrilling present. 
 
 Jimmy Pool was smiling, and he alone had not 
 joined his voice to the chorus of yells. The Vaga 
 bond was at once cool and burning with excitement; 
 at once clear-eyed to every detail and drunk with the 
 eagerness of conflict, and withal as insensible of 
 danger as the rising partridge to the meaning of the 
 sportsman s gun. Tim Booker thought that he was 
 fighting the whole Confederate army single-handed, 
 and every man he thrust at he counted as dead. The 
 Vagabond leading, thanks to Breaker, kept calling, 
 while he plied his sabre, "Don t stop! Don t fear! 
 
 249 
 
THE VAGABOND 
 
 Follow me! Follow me!" while nobody could hear 
 him above that torrent of noise. The horses by in 
 stinct followed their leader, the great bay, whose life 
 carried the hopes of all. Behind them they left a 
 swath of huddled infantry-men on all fours, rising 
 gamely to their feet, trying to reload and fire at 
 something. 
 
 At the bend in the Confederate line, where the 
 Hanking party met the front division of it, they 
 passed through inevitably and the horses came to a 
 stop at the whistle s call, their riders holding aloft 
 reeking blades. They were within the enemy s 
 forces. They were a stream that had been ingulfed, 
 and their dusty blue uniforms on a background of 
 dusty trees, dusty sward, and dusty, gray-coated 
 soldiery showed their origin. In front of them was 
 the Confederate reserve; in the rear, the firing-line 
 that they had just passed. A year later, the same 
 personnel of the enemy would have taken that little 
 band of cavalry prisoners with the same easy confi 
 dence that a farmer puts up the bars of the barn-yard 
 for the night. They would have fired at the riders 
 with sharp-shooters accuracy and a veteran s ready 
 initiative, then run forward to gather them in. As it 
 was, they were as surprised as you would be to find 
 a total stranger materialize out of thin air and reach 
 for your under-shirt at the same time that you did in 
 the morning. They looked and blinked. Those who 
 lifted their rifles feared that they would shoot their 
 own men beyond. Officers who, a year later, would 
 have known just what to do, shouted differing com 
 mands in view of this totally unexpected first en 
 counter with the Yankees. 
 
 250 
 
THE VAGABOND 
 
 "What in hell s going to become of us now?" 
 gasped one of the Vagabonds. 
 
 "We re going back!" jelled Tim Booker. "We re 
 going to eat 7 em up! We re cannibals, savage can 
 nibals! We ll cut the rebel army into slices like it 
 was a big, soft cheese!" 
 
 In the short time that it took the enemy to recover 
 its poise and to realize how hopelessly this little band 
 of cavalry was at its mercy, the Vagabonds had faced 
 about and started on the return, and not a second 
 too soon. If not with the order which makes the 
 steel at the horse s breast invincible, at least in the 
 proper individual positions, the Confederates, recov 
 ering their breath, their animus, their corps spirit, and 
 their acumen, along the route which the charge had 
 taken and by which it must return presented their 
 bayonets in rigid and murderous welcome, confident 
 that the Red Caps, who paralleled them, would not 
 fire on their own troops. The run out had been a 
 surprise; the run back was a set event, the Confed 
 erate firing-line knowing its part. 
 
 "They re coming back! They re coming back!" 
 the General shouted, with the enthusiasm of a sports 
 man who sees his horse winning; only no race could 
 compare with this one of life and death. He gave 
 up his glasses and fell back on his naked eye, as we 
 all do in great excitement. "That s it ! that s it ! 
 That s military genius !" he suddenly cried. 
 
 No horses would charge upon bayonets and no 
 cavalry would attempt it. The valiant company must 
 return either in the zone between the Confederate 
 reserve and firing-line or else between the firing-line 
 and the Bed Caps. A warning song of a shell made 
 
 251 
 
THE VAGABOND 
 
 the Vagabond choose the former. Bulwer, who had 
 been purring over the prospect with his guns all 
 shotted ready to converge at right angles on the 
 Vagabonds, lost his academical calm so far as to 
 swear in an oath that was the more savage because 
 he used one so seldom. His missiles would be as dan 
 gerous to his friends as to the enemy. 
 
 Then, that Confederate firing-line also had a flash 
 of genius, man for man, which, we flatter ourselves, 
 is American. It realized that the cavalry in its rear 
 could do it no more harm than a passing drove of 
 wild horses to a man in a tree. It started its bayonets 
 with all speed to take the hill where lay the Eed Caps. 
 But the Red Caps were made soldiers now. They 
 grinned in awful satisfaction and hurled the attack 
 ers back as easily as you can make a man drop his 
 hold of a plank by rapping his fingers. 
 
 Still under the fire of the infantry of the Confed 
 erate reserve, the surviving troopers returned over 
 the rising ground which had flung them into the con 
 flict as an actor rushes from the flies all save Tim 
 Booker. Circumstances over which he was proud 
 master made him a little late. He came into that 
 harbor of refuge with a small Confederate private, 
 his shirt clutched in Tim s sabre-hand, bobbing most 
 uncomfortably on the horn of the saddle. 
 
 "I killed a hundred !" he yelled, in a thundering 
 voice a bass voice, now. "And I just lifted this lit 
 tle tobacco-raiser by the hair of the head and brought 
 him as a sample to show you what you got so scared 
 about!" 
 
 "Oh, make it fifty, Timothy," said Jimmy. 
 
 "One hundred and six, to be exact," Tim replied 
 252 
 
THE VAGABOND 
 
 "I cut down the actual figures to please you, Now 
 I stick to em." 
 
 The General, his delight over the troop s exploit 
 muffled in the demands of the moment, gave an order 
 instead of a compliment. In company of the rein 
 forcements which had arrived, he sent the Vagabonds 
 dismounted back to extend the line of the Red Caps 
 and, therefore, make their tactical position complete. 
 At the bugle s call Tim was in a quandary ; he did not 
 want to lose his captive. Finally, he handed him 
 over to one of the horse-holders: 
 
 "Let "Willie play some if he wants to. Must miss 
 his ma," he said. 
 
 "You great big piece of whiskers and 
 
 suet!" cried the little Confederate, in rage and tears. 
 "I could lick you till you bawled if I had half a 
 chance." 
 
 "Willie," admonished Tim, "when a man s been 
 snatched up by the hair of his head the way you was, 
 he don t want to talk. He wants to stop and consider 
 and grow !" 
 
 Hurrying on to catch up with his comrades, Tim 
 saw how their numbers had dwindled, and a light 
 burst upon him. 
 
 "They ve been killing our fellows!" he cried, his 
 voice rising to the tremolo. "The blasted tobacco- 
 raisers ! Just let me get a shot at em ! Oh, I m a 
 cannibal, a savage cannibal!" 
 
 Then not only he, not only Billy, but every other 
 Vagabond, coming to their new position (as infantry) 
 on the crest of the ridge, before them the field of their 
 charge scattered with fallen men and fallen horses, 
 saw one man carrying another in his arms toward 
 
 253 
 
THE VAGABOND 
 
 them- A dozen volunteers starting to their assistance 
 were stopped by their Captain. 
 
 "See!" he exclaimed. "The Confederates are 
 ceasing to fire in that direction If you go out they 
 will begin again." 
 
 It was one of those moments when the sheer chiv 
 alry inherent in every brave man s soul lifts him 
 above the motives which bring him to a battle-field. 
 Though the blood-lust of strife was in their hearts, 
 though the glassy eyes of their own dead around 
 them called for revenge, the Confederates, as they 
 turned their rifles away, cheered the gallantry which 
 had made enemies akin. Through a zone of gentle 
 peace, Hosea Pillsbury, one-time town drunkard, 
 himself bleeding, bore the one-time Judge, helpless 
 as an infant, with the blood gushing from a wound 
 in his side. 
 
 "~L was so glad I fell near you and I could help!" 
 he said; and seeing his bunkie under the doctor s 
 care, he lost no time in that critical moment in tak 
 ing his place in the line to which the Confederate 
 musketry such are the amenities of war now 
 seemed to say: 
 
 "We let that brave fellow off, and we hope that the 
 fellow he carried will get well. But you will under 
 stand that our opinion of you well men over there 
 hasn t changed. "We didn t want to take your old 
 hill, anyway. Take that between the eyes and that 
 in the groin, will you !" 
 
 The Vagabond, still upright except that he rested 
 one knee on the ground in surveying the field, saw 
 that Captain Herrick was walking up and down as 
 jauntily as ever. With all speed he hastened, expos- 
 
 254 
 
THE VAGABOND 
 
 ing himself unconsciously along the whole line of 
 fire, to the Father Vagabond, who was still tickling 
 his men with his wit. 
 
 "Feeling kind of mean, ain t they, s if somebody d 
 hit em in the stummick and the back of the head and 
 chucked red pepper in their faces at the same time. 
 Still, if we hadn t been just lazy and selfish enough 
 to stick, they might be lying nice and cool right in 
 this very spot themselves and plugging it into us. I 
 tell you, boys, there s no way of making an enemy 
 uneasy like getting up close and shooting fast and 
 straight." At sight of the Vagabond, all the pride of 
 a teacher in a pupil shone in his face. "Phil Kearney 
 couldn t have done it better!" he cried. 
 
 "There s still a heavy fire and there s no need of 
 standing now, Father Bob." 
 
 "Yes, sir, we re going to hold em off the road so 
 the other folks can get away, sure enough. I thought 
 you d take the wrong side of that firing-line, but you 
 didn t, you didn t, you sandy-haired, runaway little 
 cuss, you!" the Captain continued, oblivious of the 
 suggestion. 
 
 "For my sake, if no other reason! You are all I 
 have in the world." The Vagabond put his hand on 
 the Captain s shoulder. 
 
 "Yes, yes, Billy, that s so. It s you and me and a 
 good trail and a clean, dry camp and happiness, ain t 
 it?" 
 
 He sank to his knee. It was not his own volition 
 that carried him farther. He clapped his hand to his 
 chest and the blood trickled between the fingers, 
 while the Vagabond held him gently in his arms. 
 
 "It s in a bad place," he said, 
 255 
 
THE VAGABOND 
 
 The Vagabond s only answer was to press his own 
 hand over the wound, as if to dam the red stream 
 thus, and then he bore his patron to shelter. 
 
 As swiftly as words and glances can inflame a 
 crowd, the news that "Granddad" had fallen passed 
 along the line of the Ked Caps. They heard it in 
 grim, smothering silence. As if they were a monster 
 with a single body, the demon of hell entered into 
 their spirit and they charged. They drove the Con 
 federates back before their whirlwind of anger and 
 took up a new position, where they remained, dumb 
 of lip, savagely swearing in their hearts and firing 
 as steadily as so many competitors at a tournament 
 for a prize. Dimly the Captain heard their shouts 
 as they leaped from the earth to their path of re 
 venge. 
 
 "Is that my boys my veterans?" he asked. 
 
 The smile that played around the corners of his 
 mouth on hearing the answer was an epitaph which 
 language cannot translate. 
 
 Thenceforth the Red Caps were known by an 
 other name. When Lee s skirmishers broke through 
 the under-brush in front of Cemetery Ridge at Get 
 tysburg, a private spoke for all when he exclaimed: 
 
 "This ain t any home militia! It s those d d 
 
 Granddads again!" 
 
 As the old soldier lay lifeless in his foster son s 
 arms, some of the wounded Red Caps who could still 
 stand gathered around him in that awe of the victo 
 rious soldier for his leader fallen in the hour of 
 victory which no other situation can approximate. 
 Finally, one of them broke the silence with words 
 coming between the swallows of a dry, full throat: 
 
 256 
 
THE VAGABOND 
 
 "Do you think he knows that that us greenhorns 
 that kind of made fun of Granddad that he knows 
 we learned to to love him to-day?" 
 
 "Yes," the Vagabond replied, with a solemnity he 
 had never known before, "yes, he knew your hearts 
 from the first, and your hearts were right. He saw 
 you prove it to-day." 
 
 For himself, while he looked into the tranquil face 
 of the hero who had shaped his course merrily over 
 all trails in all weathers, he still heard the lips repeat 
 ing their last whispered words of advice : 
 
 "You stick to that girl, my boy. You ve got to 
 have somebody or some idea to keep you straight. 
 And don t you feel sorry for me. I m not propped up 
 on pillows as I always feared. I m being mustered 
 out just in the way I wanted to be and I m past 
 seventy past the time any of us enlists for." 
 
 257 
 
xxvin 
 
 NOT THE SAME FELICIA 
 
 To Felicia as well as to thousands of others that 
 famous day was as upsetting as if the earth had sud 
 denly stopped with a jolt (when the Union line 
 broke) and begun to revolve in the opposite direction. 
 Conflicting and tragical emotions had full play in a 
 nature whose life-long rule of self-repression had 
 been blown away in a breath. Her thoughts were 
 tossed from dagger s point to dagger s point of hor 
 ror, disgust, chagrin, and indignation, while the slew 
 ing carriage bore her helpless from the battle-field. 
 
 She had given her goodies to poltroons and heard 
 dying heroes calling in the Saviour s name for water; 
 she had seen the flag of her country trailed in flight 
 before its enemies; she had felt the utter powerless- 
 ness of all save brute force and brute skill in human 
 conflict; she had been face to face with death in its 
 worst form; she had heard the fierce oaths of men 
 trying to stay the lightnings with bone and flesh, of 
 generals, so immaculate on parade when their legions 
 seemed unconquerable, as, hatless, coatless, blood 
 stained, they drove their horses among these same 
 legions transformed into broken-winged birds on 
 panic s wind. 
 
 Her idols were shattered; all that she had held se 
 cure in the world was wabbling, except her faith ID 
 
 253 
 
THE VAGABOND 
 
 Iier principles. The Judge, he whom she had looked 
 up to as great in the law and an exemplar of good 
 citizenship, had turned buffoon before her very eyes. 
 She would never, never suffer herself to speak to him 
 again. While his country was crying for help, how 
 he had lounged, smoking his vile pipe like a village 
 loafer ! Not satisfied with boorishness, he would have 
 laid hands on her as if she were no more than a bag 
 of meal. She ought to have known, she told her 
 self when in a certain mood, that she could have ex 
 pected nothing else of him. Hadn t he pictures of 
 Virginians in his office? Hadn t he laughed at her 
 mighty Greeley for a whooping, ranting agitator? 
 (Hadn t that fool Greeley, fighting battles with his 
 spectacles and an ink-pot, howled "On to Richmond !" 
 as if Richmond was a railroad-station lunch-counter? 
 she was crying a few minutes later.) Probably the 
 Judge half wished that his fellow-countrymen, as 
 he called the Confederates, would win. His chosen 
 comrade, Jimmy Pool, that supercilious hypocrite, 
 she was sure was a rebel at heart. How could any 
 man be as cool as he when his side was losing? 
 Hadn t he kept the Vagabonds in idleness purposely ? 
 In truth, she did not dare to think of the hateful 
 Jimmy long lest she should call aloud to the very 
 trees and fences. 
 
 Her overwhelming fear was that the Union would 
 falter after this repulse. When it had been so hard 
 to work his courage up to call for sixty thousand men, 
 who dared to hope that the weak backbone of Abra 
 ham Lincoln would not lean toward peace ? If it did, 
 she would take the platform herself against him. She 
 would tell the people that this was only a setback in- 
 
 259 
 
THE VAGABOND 
 
 tended by the Almighty to rebuke their over-confi 
 dence and callousness and to teach them their power 
 and the needs of the hour. 
 
 As the carriage passed out of the range of fire, the 
 driver allowed the winded horses to slacken their 
 pace. On both sides were the flying out-runners of 
 disaster. 
 
 "You lazy coward/ 7 she called to the nearest one, 
 "go back!" 
 
 "Ca-an t! Wownded, ma am, wownded to the 
 death," he replied, redoubling his pace. 
 
 "I ve eaten hardtack enough!" cried a New York 
 tough. "Let the Generals do the fighting!" 
 
 Miss Felicia reached for the driver s whip and, ris 
 ing in the carriage, struck him across the face. He 
 raised his rifle as if to fire and dropped it with a 
 curse as the sight rested on a woman s bosom. 
 
 "And you, what are you running for?" she de 
 manded of a giant countryman, going as fast as his 
 blown lungs would permit him. 
 
 "Ma am," he replied, as a light broke on him, 
 "ma am, can t you see I m scared?" Then the giant 
 stopped. He rubbed his head; he looked back at the 
 scene around him; finally he grinned. "Well, by 
 gosh! If we ain t a reedikewlus lot o sheep!" he 
 said. "Thank ye, ma am!" He faced about and re 
 traced his steps at the run. Never again in four 
 years service could anyone say that he flinched under 
 fire. 
 
 And what was this line of blue halted beside the 
 road for a rest on a march in formation to the rear? 
 None other than that notorious regiment whose black 
 name and black deed are still read as a warning to 
 
 260 
 
THE VAGABOND 
 
 every recruit to the National Guard of a certain 
 State; none other than men wearing Government 
 coats with Government victuals in their stomachs, 
 who refused a single rifle-blast to aid the nation that 
 gave them suffrage, because their term of enlistment 
 was up on that day! 
 
 All the proud courage of those Pilgrim ancestors 
 who had landed on the stern, rock-bound coast welled 
 to her temples in shame for them, and her loathing 
 found expression in an all-embracing phrase. 
 
 "Keep your skirts out of the dust, ladies!" she 
 screamed, and passed on. 
 
 The stragglers grew fewer with her progress, till 
 at the Virginia side of the bridge with Washington 
 before them she came up with the distinguished ad 
 vance guard of the retreat, who was as zealous in 
 his task as the famous runner from Marathon. With 
 the handkerchief which he had used to bind his 
 wound he was now mopping his sweaty brow, as he 
 stumbled on perseveringly. He could not have lost 
 much blood, for his face was the color of crushed 
 strawberries. 
 
 "We re whipped! whipped!" he shouted. "The 
 whole Union army is flying horses rearing, cannon 
 roaring, thousands killed and the rest running for 
 their lives! The rebels had fifty times our number. 
 We ve been murdered, betrayed betrayed! I m go 
 ing home. IVe been shot to pieces enough. Fm go 
 ing home and tell how we ve been betrayed. I know! 
 I know! Fm right from the field!" 
 
 "So am I!" said Felicia. 
 
 He looked at her enviously. His hard-won disk 
 tinction was lost. 
 
 261 
 
THE VAGABOND 
 
 "You had a carriage" he remarked, plaintively. 
 
 Felicia s mind had grown nimble with excitement. 
 Forthwith conceiving a plan, worthy of the Vaga 
 bond s fancy in its most outlandish mood, she smiled 
 at Tom Prather winningly and moved to one side of 
 the seat. 
 
 "We ll tell the story together. Jump in I" 
 
 As they entered the streets of Washington, the ve 
 hicle rattling over the paving-stones broke in upon a 
 melancholy stillness. Knots of men gathered here 
 and there were as subdued as the undertaker s help 
 ers at a church-door. Ears hopeful of success, fear 
 ful of defeat, were pricking keen for every fragment 
 of a rumor. Tom Prather wanted to alight at once. 
 He imagined the crowd he could gather, as he saw 
 eyes turned curiously toward them. For the first 
 time in his life he was a person of importance. 
 
 "Wait!" said Miss Felicia. "We ll take it to those 
 in power." 
 
 Why shouldn t she? Wasn t she a tax-payer? 
 Wasn t she an American ? She would go to "that man 
 Lincoln" herself and tell him he must must, must 
 call for hundreds of thousands of men. Under the 
 impetus of her mingled despair and indignation, she 
 bade the driver turn into the White House grounds. 
 The speed of the carriage, if not the appearance of 
 the ill-assorted pair on the seat, was enough to speak 
 the magic word "News" to the attendants. 
 
 "Tell the President," said Felicia, "that we are 
 straight from the front Miss Hope, the daughter of 
 the late Senator Hope" as if the name were an 
 open sesame to any august presence "and Mr. Tom 
 Prather." 
 
 262 
 
THE VAGABOND 
 
 A young man passed into the ante-room with the 
 visitor s request, and when the door was opened again, 
 it framed the tall form of the President. He nodded 
 and inclined toward the two in a listening attitude. 
 He was as ungainly as his reputation made him, Miss 
 Felicia thought; yes, and as weak. 
 
 "I expect you left our boys pretty busy," he said. 
 
 "Tom Prather, here, has the whole story." She 
 turned to the private. "He d have beaten me if I 
 hadn t had a carriage." 
 
 The private realized that he had the ear of Ma 
 ruler. He was Yankee enough not to be abashed 
 and to make the most of his opportunity. 
 
 "We re all cut to pieces! There s a million Con 
 federates ! We ve been betrayed be " There Tom s 
 effort to hold up his end failed. The deep-set eyes 
 of the President seemed to have pinioned for public 
 view, like butterflies in a collector s cabinet, all the 
 lies he had ever told. 
 
 "Yes, and Tom started straight home as soon aa 
 he found out the truth," Miss Felicia went on* "He 
 wants to be the first to tell the neighbors. Go ahead, 
 Tom speak for yourself!" 
 
 All Tom s strength was occupied in crushing his 
 fatigue cap. He was helplessly, pitifully dumb. 
 
 "Well," said the President, "we like to be accom 
 modating. I will have Mr. Cameron provide Tom 
 with a guard and hurry him off at once. It will be 
 a real triumph for him to stand up in front of the 
 town-hall and tell his folks and his relatives and fel 
 low-citizens how he beat the whole army in running 
 away from the Confederates." 
 
 This subtle touch of humanity made Tom see the 
 263 
 
THE VAGABOND 
 
 finger of every man, woman, and child in his com 
 munity pointing in scorn at him. The blood flew 
 from his face, leaving it pale and grim in determina 
 tion. He squared his shoulders as if to receive a 
 blow. 
 
 "I ll jump out of the train ! I ll kill myself before 
 I ll go back there and be called a coward!" he cried. 
 "I ll fight! I ll fight as long as I can see the sight 
 of a rifle, as long as I can wriggle an inch toward 
 the rebels, but I won t go back home alive for you 
 or any other man on the face of the earth, Mr. Presi 
 dent!" 
 
 The mobile mouth which had been so firm now 
 curved in a smile, and the grave, gentle eyes shone 
 with a kindliness significant of the mind which 
 sounded for the good in his fellow-men and brought 
 it into play. 
 
 "Well, as I said, Tom," the President resumed, 
 "we like to be accommodating. Return to your work 
 and if you make a good soldier I ll know of it." 
 
 "You ve been a father to me!" said the private, 
 who waited not on fatigue or hunger till he had re 
 ported to his commander. 
 
 "And I ve got something to say to you myself, 
 now, Mr. President," said Miss Felicia. 
 
 "Yes, Miss Hope," responded the patient recep 
 tacle. 
 
 "It s the gospel truth!" she cried. "Our soldiers 
 are running like sheep! I ve seen great, strong men 
 flying from their own shadows and crying like chil 
 dren." 
 
 "Yes, there are faint hearts in all companies and 
 they always seem to go with a good pair of lungs," 
 
 264 
 
THE VAGABOND 
 
 he replied. "We ll have to wait for that sort to get 
 their second wind, just as Tom Prather has here. I 
 guess, though, that the majority of the boys are 
 doing their duty. In fact, I ve just heard over 
 the wire of a cavalry charge that wasn t very faint 
 hearted." 
 
 "Mr. President, I am one woman and one tax 
 payer, and I come to tell you, as one woman and one 
 tax-payer, that I have never been as angry in my life 
 as I am this minute. Abraham Lincoln will give up 
 now, the Union will ask for peace, I ve kept saying 
 all the way back from that field of horror. Mr. 
 President, call for all the men and money in the 
 country! It isn t a time for honey, now. It s a time 
 to settle down and make war, Mr. President! We 
 must not give up, Abraham Lincoln, we must not!" 
 
 Even as she spoke, he had taken the sting out of 
 her words with that smile which was to turn the 
 wrath, the perversity, the plotting of selfish and di 
 vergent interests, the enthusiasm of radicals, the in 
 difference of conservatism, into weapons for gaining 
 his one supreme end the Union. 
 
 "I think you ll find that the whole country feels 
 that way. Out in Illinois, when we get careless and 
 leave the barn-door open, we get all the spunkier be 
 cause we ve been neglectful, and we don t content 
 ourselves with just buying a lock. We call in the 
 neighbors and catch the thief and recover the horse. 
 The next call will not bring the fellows who were 
 going South on a picnic. It will bring the men who 
 were too busy to take a holiday, but who are not too 
 busy to fly to their country s aid when it is in danger. 
 Yes, out in Illinois, where they re taking up land 
 
 265 
 
THE VAGABOND 
 
 and paying off mortgages and earning the money to 
 send their children to school, they don t go to war 
 until they get well stirred up." 
 
 All through the night the disorderly fragments 
 poured into the capital with their disconnected tales. 
 The crowds gazing at the lights in the White House 
 wondered if by to-morrow it would not be Beaure- 
 gard s head-quarters. General Scott, that veteran 
 who made the Yera Cruz campaign an orderly march, 
 looked out of his window in his old age on all that is 
 repulsive to the military organizer. The residents 
 for Washington was a Southern city at heart 
 greeted one another with knowing smiles, believing 
 that in twenty-four hours they could raise their 
 chuckles into shouts. 
 
 The man who sprang from the people, who car 
 ried the heart of the people with him into high places, 
 knew whereof he spoke. The set faces of Congress, 
 the opinion of the morning papers, showed that New 
 England tenacity did not dwell in Belmore alone. 
 It had spread westward to the Great Valley, where it 
 took root in fertile soil with the promise of a sur 
 passing growth. That day, more momentous than 
 Gettysburg, found the rock-bottom of American na 
 tionality. The people of the United States decided 
 that no price was too great to save the one and in 
 separable from becoming a medley of wrangling 
 republics. 
 
 To all, as to Miss Felicia, the battle was lost and 
 a battle past. With her, they sought to know that 
 others were as determined. What would her Greeley 
 say now? The satire of its "On to Richmond!" which 
 events had proved, only made the Tribune sell all the 
 
 266 
 
THE VAGABOND 
 
 better. Everybody wanted to see if the bellicose 
 editor had killed the famous standing head-line. He 
 had, and was still interesting. No longer in favor 
 of conquering a great, chivalrous people with a pen- 
 thrust, he called for preparations with all the vigor 
 of his overwrought, turgid phrase. Reading, Miss 
 Felicia believed in him more than ever. Then, turn 
 ing to the news-sheet, she thrilled at sight of the name 
 of the Vagabonds in bold type. "Judge Williams 
 will live!" said a subhead. She clutched the sheet 
 frantically as she read, "The wound of the County 
 Judge of Belmore, that splendid example of self- 
 sacrificing patriotism 77 the reportorial style of the 
 day was florid and paid by the word "who, disdain 
 ing rank, saying that trained soldiers should com 
 mand, left his judicial elevation to serve his country 
 as a private, is not as serious as the first conflicting 
 reports of other journals represented. In his extrem 
 ity he would have bled to death on the field if a com 
 rade had not gallantly flown through a perfect rain 
 of bullets to his timely succor. This comrade, it 
 seems, was," etc., etc. It did not mention the Con 
 federates chivalry in withholding their fire. There 
 was no such thing as Confederate chivalry in the 
 Tribune office thus early in the war. 
 
 "Oh, John!" she exclaimed. "And you you 
 didn t send for me !" 
 
 Why should he? ran her piercing second thought. 
 Had she not rebuffed him? Had she not called him 
 oh, had she called him a vulgar lounger to his face 
 or only in fancy? Anyway, she had believed it and 
 that was just as wicked. 
 
 She had come to the army as a nurse and here she 
 267 
 
THE VAGABOND 
 
 was, idly reading in Washington, while hundreds of 
 men lay wounded and dying on the other side of the 
 Potomac. Price and weary horses were no considera 
 tion. She entered the first unoccupied vehicle. She 
 had no sarcasm to vent on stragglers now, no inter 
 ests, no thoughts except personal duty and a great 
 fear, as the carriage bore her through Georgetown, 
 across the bridge and fairly into the conglomeration 
 of artillery, infantry and cavalry, of the mixed parts 
 of regiments and companies which yesterday had 
 been an army, which weary officers were trying to 
 make into an army again. Over all in the gray light 
 hung grim, naked reality, as over a banquet-table 
 when the dishes have not been cleared away; when 
 cigar-stubs grown rank still lie beside the coffee-cups, 
 and wine-glasses still hold the dregs. 
 
 You did not sleep on a feather-bed last night, 
 my son, as the grass stains on your uniform prove. 
 Your good mother did not ask you if your coffee 
 was hot this morning. You did not have ham and 
 eggs and flannel cakes for breakfast. Oh, no; this is 
 soldiering. This is the reality that follows the glori 
 ous function of going to war. But your eyes are 
 blue, your hair is fair; you belong to the race that 
 sees a task through, which you will do, as will also 
 your victors, too shocked at the cost of victory, too 
 weary, to follow up their advantage as they would 
 have done a year later. Only, a year later you, too, 
 had become veterans and would not have given them 
 the opportunity. Your ignorance of each other s 
 virtues, your exaggeration of each other s faults, the 
 breaking point of principle and range of the soil s 
 products have locked you in a combat which pride 
 
 268 
 
THE VAGABOND 
 
 will continue till one is prostrate, his last resource 
 expended. 
 
 Her carriage stopped by the press, as Felicia 
 looked around for a way out she saw at one side lines 
 of men drawn up in order. Begrimed as they were, 
 they were handsome to the eye; as suggestive as a 
 platoon of police marching through a motley crowd, 
 this first brigade to be in order after the disaster. 
 Their commander was a red-haired, red-bearded man, 
 with sword drawn in salute. Another carriage con 
 taining the President was approaching. His face, al 
 ways sad in repose, showed the weariness of his all- 
 night vigil and the realization of the scene around 
 him with its suggestion of the future, pregnant with 
 expense and suffering to the nation. 
 
 "There they are, what s left of them, Mr. Presi 
 dent," said the commander. "I hope you won t make 
 any speeches. We ve had too many speeches in this 
 war, in my opinion, sir." 
 
 No sight could have been more welcome to the 
 weary Lincoln than these steady lines. They were 
 the one rift in the sorrows of the last twelve hours. 
 The news of his presence brought the stragglers to 
 gether in a crowd. Yes, sir, here he was; here was 
 Abraham Lincoln himself. What had he to say 
 about it? They gave voice to the question which the 
 whole country was asking. 
 
 The President, mindful of the Colonel s request, 
 responded with a few words that were soothing and 
 encouraging. When he had finished, one of the 
 soldiers broke from the ranks. The Colonel started 
 at this summary breach of discipline, but allowed the 
 man to go on with his speech. 
 
 269 
 
THE VAGABOND 
 
 "Mr. President, I come to you for justice," he said 
 "We ve been more than three months away from our 
 armory, though we weren t mustered into the United 
 States service till after we began guarding the B. 
 & O. We have got business to attend to at home. 
 I started to march out of camp this morning with 
 some of the boys who stand for a good many votes 
 in our county. The Colonel, there, drew his re 
 volver on us. He said, You ve been soldiering long 
 enough to know what soldiering means. The United 
 States Government has construed that that three 
 months began when you were actually mustered into 
 the United States service. The first man that steps 
 another foot, I ll shoot him! Yes, sir, he said that 
 to me. And he drew his revolver he drew his re 
 volver !" 
 
 "Correct!" ejaculated the red-bearded man. 
 
 "Well," replied the President, "I ve been looking 
 Colonel Sherman over a bit, and from what I can see 
 of him, if he said he d shoot me I d be careful for 
 I think he d do it." 
 
 Was it a laugh that passed along the lines of weary 
 men ? Perhaps only a grin, that broke into a chuckle. 
 
 "Looks like rain," observed someone, as the ora 
 tor stepped back into the ranks. 
 
 "Good ! good !" Miss Felicia cried aloud. "Abra 
 ham Lincoln isn t all for votes. He has got backbone, 
 and when the cartilages shuck together the way they 
 did then, there s no bending it." 
 
 As the stragglers who had been attracted by the 
 presence of the President were scattered, her carriage 
 proceeded. No one could tell her where the wounded 
 Vagabonds were. This and that soldier did know, 
 
 270 
 
THE VAGABOND 
 
 however, that a nearby barn had been turned into a 
 hospital. Thither she hurried. Her heart was throb 
 bing as she looked over the rows of men who had 
 shed their blood yesterday in the name of a great 
 cause; who had not straggled or thought of strag 
 gling; who had gone into action with the steadiness 
 and courage that their march out with cheers and 
 sweethearts and mothers tears bidding them God 
 speed had promised; who had given an unfortunate 
 battle the redeeming glory and sorrow of a long 
 casualty list. John was not there. 
 
 "Williams ? You mean the Judge that enlisted aa 
 a private ?" said the sleepy surgeon, who had cut and 
 bandaged by candle-light all night. "I took special 
 care of him." 
 
 He led the way to the shade of a tree, where the 
 Judge s white face lay still on the background of an 
 elm s rough bark. At the sound of her voice he 
 turned his head and smiled wanly. 
 
 Knowing now that even a righteous war was not 
 conducted as quietly as a church collection ; knowing 
 that man must be strong for the fight, first of all, if 
 he would win in battle, the dusty coat and the un 
 shaven beard became only the cherished emblems of 
 manhood. What if he did smoke an ugly clay pipe ? 
 He had bled for her cause ; he had stood the test. On 
 his side, he was as far from indulging in heroics 
 as most real heroes are. (They leave that to the 
 writers. ) 
 
 "Mornin , ma am," he said, cheerfully and respect 
 fully. "Jeff Davis doesn t seem to have caught up 
 with us yet. I guess I can run faster n he can." 
 
 "Is it it bad, John ?" she asked. 
 271 
 
THE VAGABOND 
 
 "Nothing but a hole ; didn t touch the bone, thank 
 you, ma am. Leaked some, though. That s what 
 makes my legs feel as if my body had to carry em in 
 stead of the other way round, ma am." 
 
 "Please don t ma am me, John," she pleaded. 
 
 "Felicia, then. Privates will get into the habit of 
 deference. Felicia, I tell you when that nephew of 
 mine flashed his sabre and we started across that 
 field, it didn t take any courage. I enjoyed it, Felicia. 
 I was like a horse running away. What if I did 
 smash the buggy and impale myself on a rail ? The 
 fun was worth the cost. I didn t care a whoop what 
 became of me, long s I could get in as many whacks 
 as the next fellow. Talk about your leaders ! Why, 
 I d follow the Vagabond right through the gates of 
 of Jerusalem!" 
 
 "Does your wound pain you?" she asked. 
 
 "No, not much, ma am Felicia, I mean. Not so 
 much as the loss of that pipe. Yes, that pipe is 
 gone !" 
 
 "You can get another," she said, sympathetically. 
 
 "Not as ripe never ! Why, it was like keeping a 
 box of peaches on the dining-room table, just mellow 
 enough and not too mellow, the year round. After 
 I d slept on it and guarded it the way I had, too! 
 You don t suppose it would do any good to advertise 
 in the Washington papers, do you ?" 
 
 "I m afraid not, if the Confederates have it," she 
 said, earnestly. 
 
 "Well, I couldn t smoke it now, anyway. Hosea 
 could, though. My idea was to let him have it alto 
 gether till I got well. He saved my life, Felicia 
 yes. Hosea Pillsbury, the town drunkard, did. He s 
 
 272 
 
THE VAGABOND 
 
 the proudest piece of work I ve ever done. If every 
 one of us who stood up and made speeches full of ad 
 vice the way I used to could say that he had re 
 formed just one human being, what a different world 
 it would be! Yes, Felicia, I ve made an upright, 
 sober man and a good soldier of Hosea, and he has 
 paid me back how quickly, how munificently!" 
 
 "It was your idea. It was it was like you like 
 you, John," she said, tremulously. 
 
 For an instant he looked into her eyes before he 
 threw off his mask. 
 
 "Felicia, do you know what I was thinking of 
 when I was knocked off my horse and lay there on 
 the turf, with the shouts and firing in my ears? I 
 didn t expect to live, then. I should have bled to 
 death if Hosea hadn t come. Well, a man thinks 
 pretty fast at such a time. All I thought of was you 
 I wondered how much you d care. I wondered if 
 you knew my God! if you did know if you do 
 know how I love you, Felicia !" 
 
 There was no oratory in this; no thought of the 
 garb, only of the naked feeling of the heart itself. 
 
 "Oh, John, John!" she cried, as she sank to her 
 knees and pressed her face beside his. Sobbing from 
 happiness, after a time she said : "I wish you d just 
 picked me up and put me in the carriage without ever 
 warning me. I" but why intrude further in the 
 private affairs of a pair who were enjoying the bene 
 fits of a liberalizing experience ? 
 
 273 
 
XXIX 
 
 NEEDING AN EXCUSE 
 
 When the handful of earth had rumbled on the un- 
 planed pine coffin; when high officers and old com 
 rades had rendered the homage of stricken hearts; 
 when the Red Caps had paid their last tribute of re 
 spect to their drill-master with a crash of musketry, 
 the Vagabond, who had come in silence, who stood 
 at the grave-side in silence, rode away to camp in si 
 lence between his two lieutenants, and in silence 
 parted from them. Entering his tent, he opened a 
 small box in which he kept his dear and valuable 
 possessions, and took out all the sketches he had ever 
 made of Father Bob. One by one, his gaze fondled 
 them, Each spoke to him of some obstacle overcome, 
 some happy day or some incident adding another 
 thread to the skein of love that had bound them to 
 gether. Every thread was now a severed thread, 
 twitching and writhing. Yet no word escaped his 
 lips. 
 
 As he closed the box, as he unbuckled his sabre and 
 threw it on his cot and strode out, the expression of 
 his face was still that of the blank abstraction of suf 
 fering. To Washington and back, all night, indeed, 
 he walked, until sheer physical fatigue had dulled the 
 racking pain in his head. Upon his return at dawn, 
 his orderly hastened to him with an envelope which 
 
 274 
 
THE VAGABOND 
 
 held one of those precious missives now cozened by 
 historical societies or proudly displayed in the home 
 of the recipient or the recipient s family. In his own 
 hand, as he was wont to do when thoroughly moved, 
 the President had expressed his thanks for the charge 
 and offered its leader a colonelcy of cavalry, "with a 
 brigadier s star twinkling near." 
 
 "I wouldn t part with Jimmy and Tim! If I 
 could take them with me for my lieutenant-colonel 
 and my senior major!" he said. 
 
 Just then reveille was sounded. The Vagabond 
 saw his men, the sixty that were out of grave and hos 
 pital, hastening to their places in line. He knew each 
 one s history; his "pet" as well as his surname. The 
 development and the future of each was an object of 
 loving interest and solicitude. There were "Lengthy" 
 Sykes, with a bandage around his head; "Bucky" 
 Smith, who had driven an overland stage-coach; 
 Mikey Hogan, who had scars won while a policeman 
 in Five Points; "Skippy" Ames, who had left the jun 
 ior class at Harvard ; "John Bull" Sutherland, a prof 
 ligate younger son of a lord, with his English air and 
 manner still intact and his morale greatly improved, 
 and all the others, dear, whatever their faults, because 
 he had passed on each upstanding one at the recruit 
 ing booth. And they had stood the test; they were 
 not quitters. Separation from the troop of his affec 
 tion was no promotion to him; he was a soldier from 
 his citizen s sense of duty, not by profession. A cap 
 tain of vagabonds he had begun; a captain of vaga 
 bonds he would remain. 
 
 Later, when he imparted the news to Jimmy and 
 Tim, he added: 
 
 275 
 
THE VAGABOND 
 
 "But I m sure the President will make you a majoi*, 
 Jimmy, and you a captain, Tim, and you can pass on 
 up if you wish." 
 
 "Billy," said Tim, "you remember our agreement 
 that night after your father died?" 
 
 "Yes." 
 
 "You remember that little hill-side, out there in 
 the eternal hills of California that little hill-side 
 above the mine, where we used to look for wild flow 
 ers when the snow melted?" 
 
 "Yes." 
 
 "Well, I wouldn t give the fragrance of just one of 
 those little wild flowers to be sixteen times a general." 
 
 "Good!" said Jimmy Pool, saluting. "That s me, 
 hat and boots." 
 
 Tim, as before noted, was not a stickler for military 
 forms. He was the poet of the company ; the Captain 
 its soul; Jimmy its martinet. At retreat Tim told 
 the men of their leader s decision in language which 
 made the deed lose none of its charm. They would 
 have broken ranks and surrounded the Vagabond if 
 Jimmy s eye had not been on them. As it was, 
 "John Bull" Sutherland voiced the sentiment of all. 
 Since the battle, Mikey Hogan, to the general satis 
 faction, had rechristened him "Bully John," thereby 
 confessing a racial prejudice overcome by the spec 
 tacle of the fair young Englishman who, in the 
 charge, had snatched a Confederate s musket and 
 plied the butt end after his sabre was broken. 
 
 "It s an American custom, I believe, and it s rather 
 appropriate now, I think we d all like to shake hands 
 with the Captain," said Sutherland. 
 
 "This is one of the good things of life better than 
 276 
 
THE VAGABOND 
 
 an extra bit of braid on your shoulder-strap," the 
 Vagabond kept repeating, as he pressed the calloused 
 palms of the gentle-hearted men who, two days be 
 fore, had furiously hewn a path through a forest of 
 human beings; and he recalled another compliment 
 yes, it was the sweetest memory of all of how Father 
 Bob had lived to praise him as a soldier. 
 
 To a man, the Vagabonds re-enlisted for the three 
 years for which three hundred thousand men were 
 called called to make war, not to march gayly on to 
 Richmond as were the first sixty thousand. To fill 
 the vacant places came others, whose history and up 
 standing figures and faces insured that they, too, were 
 not quitters. They had to learn what the comrades 
 who welcomed them had already learned, that the true 
 blade is not fashioned in the fight but in the workaday 
 forge. The ensuing weeks and months of inaction 
 taught them how the soldier lives through long pe 
 riods of inertia and drills on the memory of one, two, 
 or three great days strain and the expectation of an 
 other, when columns of men who have been precipi 
 tated out of inertia by the word of a general shall 
 march and fight till they drop from bullets or fatigue. 
 It is in the intervals of peace that armies are made; 
 in the battle that all results of preparation pass under 
 the swift examination of a censor as relentless as fate 
 and as impartial as the gate-keeper of the Inferno ; for 
 you can as easily build a sea-wall by a wave of the 
 hand as call into existence by a proclamation, or by 
 opening the doors of an overflowing treasury, trained 
 companies, regiments, brigades, divisions, and corps, 
 and able leaders who make fields and groves and rivers 
 a chess-board, and trained companies, regiments, bri- 
 
 277 
 
THE .VAGABOND 
 
 gades, divisions, and orps their pieces, with, whom 
 they play as calmly as with so many bits of wood. 
 
 The Vagabond s sole pleasure, aside from pride in 
 his company, was in watching the Judge s rapid con 
 valescence; his most satisfying triumph as the result 
 of his service was the happy day when he saw him 
 and Felicia made one in the church at Belmore. Of 
 course he kissed the bride, who was his aunt in truth, 
 now. His teasing was received in too good part, such 
 was the supreme happiness and self-content of the 
 pair, to make it worth while. (The groom, be it ob 
 served, now smoked cigars. Upon his setting forth 
 that he could not bear any other pipe after the loss 
 of the ripe veteran of his campaign, he smiled know 
 ingly, as much as to say that when an argument had 
 served its purpose it should be laid aside.) They 
 spent their honeymoon in Belmore, where there was 
 work to do for them in forming a regiment of in 
 fantry whose command the Judge might now accept, 
 especially as he was a married man. His wife never 
 looked at the lieutenant-colonel, Hosea Pillsbury, 
 without feeling a far greater pride in her husband as 
 a reformer than in the eagles on his shoulder-straps. 
 
 In idle hours after his return, the Vagabond, sit 
 ting in his tent-door, looked out across the fields in 
 the direction of Lanleyton, which once more lay in 
 the neutral zone. No scouting trip called him there ; 
 the Intelligence Department did not need two maps. 
 He had to wait for action while recruiting officers 
 gathered in the raw material; while tailors made uni 
 forms ; while machine-shops made muskets and ammu 
 nition; while lawyers were turned into officers; while 
 the whole was brought together into a composite 
 
 278 
 
THE VAGABOND 
 
 thing under the direction of a little major whom a suc 
 cessful skirmish, such as was soon to be of almost daily 
 occurrence, had raised to a field-marshal s command. 
 Yes, he had to wait, when love was calling him ; when 
 the mine was calling him. He never received a letter 
 from California that he did not feel the bitter home 
 sickness of one who is separated from his chosen work. 
 It did not occur to him to go back; he could not go, 
 for one thing, until he had told his story and heard a 
 positive "yes" or "no." He had set out to see the 
 war through, and see it through he would. 
 
 Captain Herrick s death had given the strength of 
 maturity to his manhood. There was not a day when 
 he did not repeat the Father Vagabond s dying mes 
 sage. More than ever, he felt that his future was 
 bound up with the woman of his heart s desire. 
 Every word she had spoken in his presence was again 
 and again recalled; again and again every impression 
 of her, in pictures that his memory held, appeared 
 before his eyes. Winning her was a part of his fancy, 
 of his scheme of life as he had outlined it long ago, 
 which had become an overpowering passion that might 
 make or break him. He knew that she was back, 
 keeping vigil alone with her servants in the old house, 
 as unapproachable to him as if it had a sea for a moat. 
 Occupied with a business that had nothing to do with 
 the mountain, the mine, and the girl, he must rest 
 almost at her threshold, when in half an hour he could 
 be at her side with that story, that suffocated him for 
 the want of telling, on his lips. 
 
 Too often for his patience, when he thought of her, 
 Southbridge appeared, sweeping the floor with his 
 plume, while he saw he"r radiantly thankful for a "he- 
 
 270 
 
THE VAGABOND 
 
 roic relief." Then he would hold Southbridge off in 
 perspective and say, "Here is a flamboyant creature 
 in a silk sash, who plays a guitar, and what he does or 
 thinks is no more matter to me, except when duty 
 shall cross our paths, than if he were any other colonel 
 in the Confederate army" a view which was always 
 and immediately eclipsed by certain recollections. 
 He could not restrain himself from associating South- 
 bridge with a precipice where there was room for only 
 one. When he made sabre practice he saw a plume 
 dancing over his opponent s head; when he led his 
 men out for the morning evolutions he never gave 
 them a fond glance without imagining that the Vir 
 ginia Firsts were sweeping across the plain to meet 
 them. 
 
 Meanwhile, he needed only to wait for darkness, 
 have his horse saddled, and break a military rule in 
 order to put himself on the road to Lanleyton and 
 leave the rest to circumstance, as any vagabond loves 
 to do. Only the thought of how Father Bob would 
 censure such an escapade on the part of a responsible 
 commander held him back. Go he was bound to, as 
 surely as the temptation and the monotony of camp 
 kept rising to tap the dam of his patience, when fate, 
 in a sable form, took charge of him one evening. Mar 
 cus Aurelius, in the rags and humility of a contra 
 band, though he detested the Yankees, had made his 
 way through the lines on his mistress s errand. In 
 the presence of the Vagabond he threw back his shoul 
 ders, and his first words were to explain his stricken 
 dignity. 
 
 "I se discountahed some difculties an obsuhved 
 some sangfraw, sah." 
 
 280 
 
THE VAGABOND 
 
 Having offered the proof of a phrase from a foreign 
 tongue (which he had learned in youthful days while 
 in Paris with his master) that bare feet were purely a 
 stage make-up with a Southern gentleman s man-serv 
 ant, he took a letter out of his dilapidated straw hat. 
 
 The Vagabond had no sooner glanced at the femi 
 nine handwriting, no sooner felt the soft linen be 
 tween his fingers, than, with thrilling realization, he 
 understood that she had written to him. Everyone 
 when he opens a folded sheet whose rustle is the pref 
 ace to tender news, prefers to be alone. He went in 
 side his tent and pulled the flap. The message which 
 he read, at first swiftly and then slowly, as if words 
 were sentences and sentences slow-dripping honey, was 
 plainly enough dictated by conscience and not inclina 
 tion. It showed a girl who, seeing through the win 
 dows of her grief when the mist of tears had passed, 
 realized that she had been a little unfair to one to 
 whom she would be under no obligation : 
 
 "LANLEYTON, September 1, 1861. 
 
 "SiR: I write this because an apology is due even 
 more to an enemy than to a friend. Its tardiness is 
 owing entirely to me; that it is sent at all is owing to 
 Cousin Eichard, who has ever had the faculty of look 
 ing on both sides of a question. 
 
 "I saw him yesterday for the first time since my 
 grandfather s death, he having been in Alabama on 
 recruiting duty. He told me that you went ahead of 
 your men on the day my grandfather was killed in 
 order to protect our house and its occupants. I had 
 never thought of it in that light. He said that your 
 action could not have been more chivalrous. I agree 
 
 281 
 
THE VAGABOND 
 
 with him. I thank you for this. I thank you because 
 not an object in our house has been disturbed. I thank 
 you for your considerateness after my grandfather had 
 fallen and for allowing me to go to the Confederate 
 lines when I might have been a bearer of information. 
 Richard says that you were fully justified by military 
 canons in taking Folly. That I cannot concede. I am 
 obliged to you, however, for returning him safely. 
 
 "I regret that my grief, my strong feeling for the 
 righteousness of our cause and the brutal unfairness of 
 yours, made me slow to see that, personally, you were 
 worthy of a better one. 
 
 "I am, sincerely yours, 
 
 "VOLILLA LANLEY." 
 
 "When he stepped out of his tent Marcus Aurelius 
 had gone. If it occurred to the Vagabond that this 
 meant that no answer was expected, it did not inter 
 fere with his plan. The time for telling his story was 
 at hand. He ordered his horse for three o clock the 
 next morning. 
 
 282 
 
XXX 
 
 HE TELLS HIS STOEY 
 
 Only his orderly and a sentry knew of his depart 
 ure. With a good-night to the one and the password 
 to the other, he was outside of the lines. He rode 
 slowly across the fields, his reins slack and his ear keen 
 for any sound of human origin. Dawn found him 
 within sight of his destination. He dismounted and 
 counted the minutes in impatience for an hour or 
 more, watching for the first signs of life about the old 
 house. In the saddle again, he observed the surround 
 ings for Southbridge with critical eye as he proceeded. 
 When he reached the shelter of the great trees he saw 
 Tolly held by the groom at the curb. 
 
 "Why shouldn t I go with her?" he thought, and 
 halted. 
 
 He had, in the sight of her slim, close-gowned fig 
 ure as it emerged from the door and joined that of the 
 horse, making a harmonious whole, the inspiration 
 which needed only a vagabond s confidence as its ally. 
 Timing Breaker s walk so as to join her on the drive, 
 he met her surprise with doffed cap, a smile, and a 
 question. 
 
 "Do you mind if I ride with you ?" 
 
 "Are you going my way ?" she asked, frowning and 
 staring. 
 
 "Yes," he replied. 
 
 283 
 
THE VAGABOND 
 
 "Then tell me which is your way." 
 
 "Yours, so it please you. 7 
 
 She laughed for the very good reason that she could 
 not help it, so easily, so serenely, so pleasantly had he 
 spoken. 
 
 "But I don t know mine yet." 
 
 "No more do I mine, then," he laughed back, in 
 the mischievous abandon which has play ahead and 
 duty s routine behind. 
 
 There she perceived that the magnetism and assur 
 ance of this Yankee had led her to bandy words too 
 freely. That instant s view of the little mole playing 
 into the dimple more becoming than the eighteenth- 
 century patch and the eyes sparkling sparkling for 
 him as they had on the day he caught the butterfly 
 for her, the woman s charm replacing the girl s of 
 his fancy at once gave him a glimpse of the warm, 
 buoyant nature which principle and prejudice held 
 in bonds, and helped him to meet her new mood with 
 his happy manner unchanged. 
 
 "Why are you mocking me?" she asked, insistently. 
 "Because you have your men in ambush behind my 
 house? Because you have power? Because you can?" 
 
 "My men are back in the Union lines," he replied. 
 "I have come here quite alone, trusting that you will 
 not betray me. I have come to ask a favor of you, to 
 me a great favor, long craved, which you may easily 
 grant. May I ride with you for half an hour and talk 
 to you?" Bending slightly toward her, radiantly 
 smiling, his cheeks flushed, the request came not only 
 from his lips but from those blue eyes, which seemed 
 to add: "It is such a little thing, so easy, and means 
 ao much to me." 
 
 284 
 
THE VAGABOND 
 
 In that recess of her brain, where a woman con 
 ceals the little emotions whose existence she denies, 
 perhaps curiosity had been aroused. Besides, a girl 
 fond of companionship and adventure had had neither 
 for two months. She needed nothing so much as the 
 relief from anxiety and care which only the preoccu 
 pation of new experience can supply. 
 
 "As you are going my way, yes, for half an hour." 
 
 Herself marvelling at her consent, she put Folly 
 to a swift trot, first by the road and then down a 
 lane ; while he, keeping pace, said nothing, but beheld 
 and admired. 
 
 "Your time is fly ing, " she called, almost command 
 ed, over her shoulder. 
 
 "The trouble is that I can t think where to begin," 
 he responded, "and I can t say it when we re going 
 at this rate, anyway." 
 
 "Then we ll walk," she said, drawing rein. "The 
 more quickly it is over, the sooner you can return to 
 your duties." 
 
 People often speak playfully, as she did, when the 
 ice is thin and they are counting the inches to the 
 shore. His silent presence was uncanny; already she 
 was wroth with herself for not having rebuffed 
 him. 
 
 "That s the trouble," he went on, as their horses 
 ears were on a line. "I thought I d know just what to 
 say when I started. You see, it seems so improba 
 ble, if I step outside of myself to look at it; while at 
 other times it s all very real and natural." 
 
 She had a suspicion that this dare-devil s sole ob 
 ject in coming was a flirtation. 
 
 "You mean," she said, stiffly, "that you thought 
 285 
 
THE VAGABOND 
 
 you d relieve the ennui of camp by riding out to see 
 that rebel girl in the old white house." 
 
 "Nothing of the kind, if you please. That day my 
 horse cast his shoe I came to tell you a story and I ve 
 been waiting ever since for the chance." 
 
 "Oh!" she exclaimed, more puzzled than ever. 
 "Well, Once upon a time that s the way stories 
 usually begin." 
 
 "Once upon a time, yes, that will do, there was a 
 boy " 
 
 "And a girl," she said, being minded of fairy sto 
 ries, and then bit her lip. 
 
 "Oh, I sha n t come to her quite so soon," he replied. 
 The lights of mischief dancing in her eyes had helped 
 him. "I ll have to begin in order. I ll start the boy 
 at four years. That s not quite as young not by four 
 years as I might start him. It was then that he was 
 brought from the city to an old house in the country 
 in New England. He didn t remember his mother; 
 but so far as he knew, his father had failed and blamed 
 her and she had died of grief. The father hated the 
 world only less than he hated women. He was deter 
 mined that his son should not see much of either. The 
 boy was learning Latin at five, sitting up on a chair 
 like the poor, helpless Sphinx in the desert sands, with 
 no hope of change. And while he crammed, what 
 was he thinking of?" 
 
 "Of a beautiful princess, of course," she said, car 
 ried on in the humor of the fairy idea, for he was 
 talking well ; and bit her lip again. 
 
 "You insist on getting the princess in ahead of her 
 appointed time," he said, happily, being hopeful just 
 then, while he was swimming in the flood of her in- 
 
 286 
 
THE VAGABOND 
 
 terest, not caring if she did scoff now that the story 
 was sure of the telling. "No, that boy was looking 
 out at the woods and hills where they met the sky and 
 wondering what lay beyond. One day he saw a wood 
 cut of a mountain, and the ambition of his life be 
 came to climb a mountain. He planned how, when 
 he was old enough, he would start and keep walking 
 until he reached one. Then one day he read that in 
 the Urals there were gold and precious stones. So, 
 of course, he must find a mine when he climbed his 
 mountain. Yes, he was just that foolish, that boy 
 a happy boy, as happy as his father was sad, happy 
 just at the thought that he was going to see the world 
 some day." 
 
 "And he didn t want a princess the least bit?" she 
 asked. 
 
 "No, not in the least then. There were cuts of 
 them in the books in the library European, Indian, 
 Hindu all kinds. The only little girls he had ever 
 seen passed up and down the road in buggies. He 
 had never had a chance to talk to them." 
 
 "Then he ought to have lost his heart to the first 
 one he met, and in the story climbed the mountain 
 and brought the mine home in a chamois bag to the 
 girl and lived happily with her ever afterward. Only, 
 he wouldn t in real life. He would fall in love with 
 the next girl he met, and so on, and reach forty a 
 bachelor, following the same pastime." 
 
 In this way she kept in evidence, with feinting 
 thrusts, the lance of her sarcasm, to let him know 
 that she was armed. She had spoken without the 
 slightest idea of what was coming, while he thought 
 that memory had suddenly recalled him to her and 
 
 287. 
 
THE VAGABOND 
 
 she was stealing his climax. But he was determined 
 that nothing should keep him from spinning his yarn 
 in his own way now. 
 
 "He was an odd boy to other people and he knew 
 he was; but he didn t much care if only he could see 
 the Rockies, whence the Latin grammar had not yet 
 penetrated. That may explain the matter of the girl. 
 One day, when he was seven, he went into the woods 
 to a favorite spot of his, where a tree falling across a 
 brook had made a deep pool. There he saw the prin 
 cess. She must have been five or six, and she had 
 very superior ways. When she smiled he would have 
 climbed a tree, or jumped into the water, or done 
 anything else at her bidding, and he was a boy who 
 did not like to take orders. He caught a butterfly for 
 her and she laughed and made him let it go." 
 
 "Oh, I do remember!" she exclaimed, suddenly, 
 with a flash of recollection. "My father was fishing 
 in the stream. He had stepped out of sight and I was 
 leaning over the pool to pick a lily. I was sure to 
 have fallen in. You seized my pinafore and said, 
 Don t fear, little girl; a boy has got you. It was all 
 play house to me. And you you," she turned tow 
 ard him all flushed and stricken, "saved my life 
 yes, you saved my life ! I ve never thought of the in 
 cident since, but now I see you did." She bent her 
 head and cried bitterly: "I wish you hadn t! I 
 would never have lived to know this old house and 
 plantation and to see their ruin. And it s another ob 
 ligation another obligation ! " 
 
 "That part you are telling, not I. Besides, you are 
 mistaken. Your father was only a few steps away. 
 He would have heard the splash and pulled you out." 
 
 288 
 
THE VAGABOND 
 
 "You honestly think so?" her pride demanded 
 promptly. 
 
 "Yes, I know it." And lie bent forward in his ear 
 nestness to save her and him from a false position. 
 
 "Thank you. I m so glad!" 
 
 "We ve all had our pleasant dreams," he went on, 
 "that were snatched away by the big hand of dark 
 ness. So her father came and took her away. Good- 
 by, you funny little boy/ she said. That boy never 
 felt so lonesome in his life before. He didn t even 
 know her name. He only knew that she lived at an 
 army Post; nevertheless, she became a part of his 
 scheme. When he climbed the mountain he was go 
 ing to drop all the gold from the mine into her lap, 
 just as he had the butterfly. He thought he would 
 have a nice shady place at the foot of the mountain 
 for her, but the mountain itself would be a regular 
 old father of a mountain, all warty with great 
 rocks, so he could show her what a good climber 
 he was. 
 
 "That is what he thought then" she had recovered 
 her tone of banter "and he was seven!" 
 
 "Yes, that brings me to the odd part of it no, not 
 quite yet. I m telling the whole story, you see, and 
 I m not going to put the climax in the middle. Un 
 like the stories that you read, the ladies will have to 
 hear me through to get that. The boy could summon 
 up a picture of that girl at any time he chose. She 
 had a tiny mole on her chin " 
 
 "Oh, that contemptible little mole!" she exclaimed, 
 in a manner that showed how easily one can regret an 
 imperfection that makes for a kind of perfection; and 
 that remark, almost familiar, made him confident, 
 
 289 
 
THE VAGABOND 
 
 f oolishly so. She was yet dumf ounded by this strange 
 experience and its developments. 
 
 "Yes, any self-respecting man ought to fall in love 
 with it, especially when it dipped into the dimple, as 
 it always did when she smiled, in return for that but 
 terfly or for the lapful of gold." 
 
 "Because the mole was out of sight?" she said. 
 
 "No, because it hid itself so cunningly, as if it was 
 going into a closet to have a chuckle by itself." 
 
 "Humph!" 
 
 She partly raised her riding-crop in her anger, as if 
 she would strike, letting it fall when she realized that 
 she had set the bait for her own trap; while he con 
 tinued in the same quiet, smiling, matter-of-fact way: 
 
 "The only friend the boy had was a neighboring 
 farm-hand, Tim Booker. It was Tim that he consult 
 ed about how big a boy ought to be before he ran 
 away. You want to grow two inches more and 
 start about time berries are ripe/ said Tim. The boy 
 promptly measured himself on a door-casing and be 
 gan to eat so heartily that he had the stomach-ache. 
 Before he was tall enough his father died; and a 
 glimpse of his guardian made him think that another 
 inch didn t count. So he started on foot for the Eocky 
 Mountains, some two thousand miles and more away. 
 But first he sought that army Post to see what the 
 girl looked like a year after he had seen her, and to 
 tell her that he would bring her back the gold as 
 soon as he found the mine. There he met the dearest 
 old man in the world, who adopted him. Together 
 they went to the Rockies by way of Cape Horn. To 
 gether they smiled and lived, while the boy grew. 
 What Father Bob was to that boy only the boy 
 
 290 
 
THE VAGABOND 
 
 knows, and lie never found words to express his 
 love. 
 
 "But he had one secret, just one, that he shared 
 with no one. Father Bob did not know the real rea 
 son that had brought him to the army Post. From one 
 of the boys there he learned that the girl had gone out 
 West, all a-bumping in a stage-coach. He concluded 
 sadly that he would have to wait and find her after he 
 had the mine. When he grew older he laughed at the 
 idea, but after he laughed he always fell a-thinking 
 and a-smiling in a way that is quite different from 
 laughing. How changed she would be, he assured 
 himself. Once he saw her again he would star-gaze 
 no more; he would find her like other girls. From 
 his connections with the garrisons in California he 
 kept track of her, and the great, delicious event which 
 he always had in mind was the day when he should see 
 her again and compare the big girl with the little girl. 
 You see, he was a dreamer and a vagabond, with only 
 the mountain for company. If he hadn t been, he 
 would not have made so much of a small matter a 
 small matter in the East. 
 
 "When the boy was thirteen, Father Bob left the 
 army and gold-hunting began. More than once they 
 worked for day s wages to get a grub stake to start 
 prospecting again. But what did they care as long as 
 the mornings were fresh and they had each other s 
 company? The troubles of the nations, of the schol 
 ars and the bankers were not theirs. Only that boy, 
 grown man, began to wonder if he would ever get 
 enough to take him East to find the girl. 
 
 "Again fortune was kind to him and the prophecy 
 was fulfilled. In climbing a peak that took his fancy, 
 
 291 
 
THE VAGABOND 
 
 his own peak that lie called the Topper, he found a 
 pocket 7 Oh, you should see the Topper!" he ex 
 claimed, in enthusiasm. "I was the first man ever to 
 reach its summit, and I was quite proud of that, quite. 
 Why, you shall see it, of course !" He drew from his 
 pocket a sketch-book. Forgetting herself, she looked 
 over his shoulder. "There it is!" and he held the leaf 
 for her inspection, "and here," he turned a page, a is 
 the mine, and these others are sketches of our camps 
 and of many people and many things. I am fond of 
 drawing, possibly because it is something my father 
 didn t teach me." 
 
 In answer to slackened reins their horses had 
 stopped. Their heads were so close that he felt the 
 electric touch of a strand of her hair blown against 
 his cheek. 
 
 "And the odd thing, in the first place, is that he 
 might never have reached the Rocky Mountains if 
 going to call on the girl hadn t brought him to Captain 
 Herrick. That s a creek where I caught two trout for 
 breakfast! And the odd thing, in the second place, 
 is that the boy climbed the Topper because it was like 
 the cut of a mountain he first saw in a book, and there 
 was a spacious, shaded plateau at the foot where 
 that s three Mexicans in their sombreros! That s a 
 sketch of myself, of the boy, I mean, blowing a fire 
 to make it go. Father Bob laughed so over it that he 
 forgot his clothes were wet!" 
 
 She, too, was smiling, though he was too interested 
 to notice it. 
 
 "It s odd, isn t it, but it s true, that the girl gave 
 him his heart s desire of seeing the mountains and 
 then gave him the mine. Was it remarkable that he 
 
 292 
 
THE VAGABOND 
 
 wanted to see her? There s where we were snowed in 
 in the Sierras, and that s Father Bob poking his head 
 out of the tent after the storm. No, it wasn t as re 
 markable as it was when he had found the mine, and 
 when he came, scoffing at his fancy, and found that s 
 the spacious, shady plateau with a stream gurgling 
 through it! You see, the only thing lacking when 
 the boy came down from his mine was the girl to re 
 ceive the gold in her lap. When he had climbed so 
 hard, don t you think that she ought to be there?" 
 
 What woman would be entirely displeased at hear 
 ing such a story? What woman would not like to be 
 lieve that she had been worshipped from childhood as 
 the only one? What woman finds admiration utterly 
 hateful ? What woman, too, will not conceal the fact ? 
 
 She turned her head away in the dizzy second that 
 brings a blush and self -consciousness. She laughed 
 laughed strangely, if she meant to laugh lightly. 
 
 "I think you are the most ridiculous man I ever 
 met!" she cried, in exasperation that she had unwit 
 tingly listened to the climax of this impossible tale. 
 
 "Have you never wished that you might go to an 
 island and be as ridiculous as you pleased?" he asked. 
 "Isn t it good sometimes to be ridiculous?" 
 
 "There is also a time for other things, and your 
 half-hour is up." 
 
 She stopped and he stopped, too. She turned her 
 horse in its tracks. He saw that she meant to close the 
 interview and comprehended that her anger was ris 
 ing. 
 
 "One more favor," he said. "I d like to race you 
 back to the house. I think I have the better horse. 
 I think I could beat you." 
 
 293 
 
THE VAGABOND 
 
 He saw in her lips, slightly parting, the mockery 
 that invites contest; in the increasing color of her al 
 ready flushed cheeks, in the trembling of the little spi 
 ral outcasts of hair as she shook her head in contempt, 
 that he had supplied her with a welcome and irresisti 
 ble means of escape from an embarrassing situation, 
 at the same time that she gratified his whim. 
 
 "Never!" she said. "Never, can he, Folly? 
 Come." 
 
 Folly replied with his hoofs. 
 
 In a race of fifty miles the Vagabond might have 
 had some chance. His horse was a dragoon s and her s 
 a hunter. Her slight form seemed as much a part of 
 her steed as his broad shoulders and great height a 
 part of his. She left him at once and increased her 
 lead rapidly. His pleasure was not in taking the 
 fences himself, but in watching her. He ceased to 
 think of a contest. He was merely superbly happy in 
 doing something in company with her. So hopelessly 
 was his bay outclassed that she had already dismount 
 ed when he entered the drive. 
 
 "Beaten!" she called, and made a courtesy. 
 "Adieu!" she added over her shoulder in triumph, 
 as her skirt whisked over the threshold. 
 
 That was her last word beyond question. 
 
 294: 
 
XXXI 
 
 A KULE OF WAR 
 
 You may hold that he had not gained a single 
 point; he thought quite differently, or, rather, he was 
 drinking too deeply of its glowing details to think of 
 the meeting in the light of progress at all. He had 
 been alone with her; he had told his story; she had 
 listened, yes, smiled in spite of herself ; he had spent 
 the most delightful half -hour of his life. If she had 
 left him summarily, the manner of her parting had be 
 queathed the most cherished impression yet. It was 
 enough for the present that he had found how beauti 
 ful were the chambers of that heart whose impulsive 
 beat had burst aside the barriers of partisanship in 
 the brief, enchanted spell that she had bent her head 
 over the pages of his sketch-book. 
 
 The next day, sitting in his tent-door and looking 
 toward the South, his reveries, in which her every 
 pose floated past in a close and clinging memory, were 
 alternated with the question as to what his next step 
 in his quest should be. But the decision of this was 
 in the hands of his superiors. A tap on the shoulder 
 brought the dreamer back to the army again. 
 
 "You re looking so happy I I thought you d be 
 worse luck!" said Maxim, of the staff, guiltily. 
 "It s the meanest job I ve ever had, and I want yon 
 
 295 
 
THE VAGABOND 
 
 to understand," lie burst out, angrily, "that I don t 
 believe a word of it!" 
 
 "Of what? Of what, Maxim?" 
 
 "Oh, it ! I ve got to say it, I suppose. I ve 
 
 come to arrest you on the charge of giving information 
 to the enemy." 
 
 After the angry denial of an innocent man struck 
 by accusation flashing out of the sky, contempt and 
 amusement twitched the corners of the Vagabond s 
 mouth. 
 
 "In that case," he said, easily, "I d better go to 
 head-quarters at once. And, thank you, Maxim, for 
 your delicacy. Thank you for believing in me. 
 That s worth a lot." 
 
 "That s you all over ! Thinking of somebody else s 
 happiness in your cool way even under this shameful 
 charge made by some lying skunk with a grudge be 
 cause you ve given him what he deserves. That s 
 what I told the General. Will you take any evidence 
 against that man? It s silly, silly! I said, right to his 
 face. And he gave me a stare and a dressing down 
 and sent me off, si-ir-r-r!" 
 
 The General s manner seemed to ice the atmosphere 
 of the tent as the Vagabond entered. Without rising, 
 his only expression of recognition was a nod. The 
 small, unplaned table before which he sat, the chairs 
 and the field-desk, all partook of the rigidity of his 
 youthful yet most mature and stable figure and the 
 set lines of his face. There was as much indication of 
 bending to sentiment as in a riveted steel truss. The 
 Vagabond put his hand to his cap and said the "Yes, 
 sir," which h the bell that raises the curtain on such 
 occasions, 
 
 296 
 
THE VAGABOND 
 
 "You are accused of giving information to the ene 
 my under your own hand/ said the General, automat 
 ically. "The charge comes through a communication 
 to the Secretary of War. In view of your services in 
 the recent battle ; in view, also, of an affection for you 
 which I do not deny, I have been granted permission 
 to go into the matter personally before the charge is 
 made public, in the hope that it may prove unfounded. 
 I will remind you, however, that you need make no 
 replies that will tend to incriminate you." 
 
 Was this the same genial fighting man who had 
 danced for delight over that mad ride and patted its 
 leader on the shoulder only two months previously, 
 this man with steel-gray eyes fixed on his own? No 
 matter. The Vagabond was not to be looked into 
 guiltiness. He met the General s gaze buoyantly. 
 
 "I am quite willing to tell the truth, sir, to anybody 
 and everybody." 
 
 "That is a good sentiment," responded the General, 
 and proceeded to his merciless catechism. "Did you, 
 night before last or in the early hours of yesterday 
 morning, leave our lines and go to the Lanley planta 
 tion?" 
 
 "Yes, sir." 
 
 "For what purpose? By whose authority?" 
 
 The General partly rose as the questions came with 
 a b-r-r through his lips. 
 
 "Of my own desire, to call on Miss Lanley." 
 
 "God Almighty!" roared the General, as he struck 
 the table with his fist. For he was, after all, an irrita 
 ble man, who kept himself encased in mail. His 
 outburst quickly under control, he wondered if this 
 care-free trooper were not making the worst of his case 
 
 297 
 
THE VAGABOND 
 
 out of sheer abandon. It would have been so easy to 
 have given the excuse of a scout, he thought. "Did 
 you see Miss Lanley?" he continued. 
 
 "Yes, sir. I rode with her for a half-hour." 
 
 The General opened a paper on the table before 
 him, being careful not to show its back, and held it 
 out for the Vagabond s inspection. 
 
 "Do you recognize that?" 
 
 "Yes, sir. It s a map of our position that I made 
 one day when I was talking to Captain Adams. I was 
 just yarning about my favorite theory that a man with 
 a thousand troopers like mine could ride clear around 
 the Confederate army and do a lot of damage, cut rail 
 roads and telegraphs and destroy supplies, without be 
 ing caught ; or if we were, our loss would be more than 
 repaid by the damage we had done." 
 
 "So they could; so they could!" shouted the Gen 
 eral, touched on his tenderest spot. "But I don t say 
 so. I don t want to be called insane, as Sherman is. 
 You ve got to wait on the procession wait till Jeb 
 Stuart shows us how; but but" there he stopped 
 and fastened the lock of his armor. "Never mind 
 that, I tell you. When did you see this paper last ?" 
 
 "When I put it away in the box where I keep my 
 papers, a week or ten days ago." 
 
 "You didn t have it with you when you went to see 
 Miss Lanley?" 
 
 "No, sir." 
 
 Again the General s lips b-r-red and he drummed 
 the table with his knuckles. The Vagabond s gaze 
 had not once shifted from his; the Vagabond s posi 
 tion had not once changed by so much as the flicker of 
 a muscle. The General, used to having others non- 
 298 
 
THE VAGABOND 
 
 plussed when lie beetled his brows, now looked away 
 from the eyes that seemed as careless of his shafts as 
 the blue sky. He sought a new hypothesis. Some 
 seemingly transparent characters knew just where to 
 groove in deception with truth. 
 
 "Please look at the other side!" 
 
 He scanned the Vagabond s face sharply for the ef 
 fect of the inscription: "For General Lee from Miss 
 Lanley, who hopes to get more information from the 
 
 same source." 
 
 "It s a lie! It s a forgery!" the Vagabond cried. 
 He leaned toward the General and raised himself on 
 tiptoes, all the force of his nature in his words. "I 
 know it s a lie and a forgery!" 
 
 "How do you know?" asked the General, immova 
 ble, in his turn, and relieved that he had struck fire. 
 
 "I know she would never do such a thing," he said, 
 impetuously, with all the faith of a crusader. 
 
 The General was now certain of his clew an old 
 and familiar one where a man and a woman are con 
 cerned. 
 
 "Oh, then you don t know by comparison with her 
 handwriting?" 
 
 "It s very like her handwriting." 
 
 "Oh!" The General shifted his position into one 
 still more forbidding, determined that courtesy was 
 at an end. "In the first place, you are guilty of a con 
 siderable offence in leaving the lines without permis 
 sion most reprehensible after the trust I placed in 
 you." 
 
 "No sense was so keen in the Vagabond as that of 
 loyalty. 
 
 "I didn t think I was doing so wrong at the time. 
 
THE VAGABOND 
 
 You know that once before I made a ride without per 
 mission at Bull Run." The General beamed; then 
 winced ; then b-r-red. "You have been very good to 
 me, sir. Since Captain Herrick s death I have looked 
 up to you in everything. It is the delight of my heart 
 to serve you, next to next" and there, in the im 
 pulse and with the candor that was characteristic of 
 his boyishness, he told the story we have heard before. 
 That seemed the only way of making himself under 
 stood. 
 
 The General s lips twitched. Possibly he recalled 
 certainly Mrs. Huested would have recalled a 
 court-martial for a love escapade of his own. After 
 that, Lieutenant Huested had put on his armor of 
 soberness, an armor which Mrs. Huested could re 
 lease in one piece by touching a magic spring. The 
 picture of this young man, truth sitting triumphant 
 in his expression and in every word, was appealing. 
 The General would have welcomed the place of advo 
 cate instead of judge. 
 
 "Have you any enemy who would be guilty of 
 stealing this paper and forging the superscription?" 
 
 "Not that I know of." 
 
 "No. The kind that strikes in the dark this way 
 doesn t make himself known. Hm-m!" The Gen 
 eral s first manner came back to him. "A very pe 
 culiar story you tell, indeed, sir," he resumed. 
 
 "That s precisely her view, sir." 
 
 "You mean that Miss Lanley does not encourage 
 your visits?" 
 
 "Exactly, sir." 
 
 That was strange if she was making a cat s-paw of 
 him, thought the General. Possibly, however, Miss 
 
 300 
 
THE VAGABOND 
 
 Lanley was deeper than he knew and had chosen the 
 best way to bring the enemy often to Lanleyton. 
 
 "You know the penalty of this? It is death," he 
 said. "Lax as we are, I believe that you will suffer 
 it. There is one person who can prove the falsity 
 or the genuineness of this signature with a few 
 scratches of her pen, and that is Miss Lanley. There 
 is one thing and one thing only for you to do to 
 bring her to the Union lines." 
 
 "I cannot." 
 
 He imagined his men drawn up in line before her 
 door, while he mounted the steps to demand that she 
 should go with him under armed escort as if she were 
 a prisoner. 
 
 "It is the only way," said the General. "Other 
 wise, I must order a formal arrest." 
 
 "Wouldn t her signature do?" 
 
 "Not unless I saw her write it. Not if you brought 
 it." 
 
 "You mean you think that I" the Vagabond 
 drove his nails into the palms of his hands and his 
 tongue to silence at this cold adjudgment of his word 
 as valueless. 
 
 "If she cares to save your life she will come with 
 out urging. If not, she is guilty." 
 
 "She is not guilty, sir!" He could not restrain that 
 cry for her, though it did dispute a superior s dictum. 
 "I ll go, sir, and she ll come; I know she will." 
 
 His face scarlet with the humiliation that he had 
 suffered at the hands of military formality, he brought 
 his hand to the salute and waited for the nod that 
 would speed him on his way. 
 
 The General, as he ran his eye over the soldierly 
 301 
 
THE VAGABOND 
 
 figure, smiled. They were no longer accuser and ac 
 cused, or even superior and subordinate, but* two men 
 with the affinity of personal force and courage. From 
 under his cot the elder brought out a bottle and two 
 glasses. That bottle was never full and never empty, 
 his friends said. When he put it on the table with a 
 bang, as he did now, business was over. 
 
 "My boy/ he said, kindly, "here s hoping that you 
 will bring the girl and prove yourself innocent. And 
 bear in mind that in an invasion a woman who remains 
 at home to reap only the bitterness of war will use a 
 woman s weapon." 
 
 "When the Vagabond had gone, as the General put 
 the bottle back in its hiding-place he muttered some 
 thing about the eternal fascination of Quixotes; then 
 he said aloud: 
 
 "There were times when he made me feel mean, as 
 if I I weren t a gentleman confound him I Con 
 found him! I admire him!" 
 
 802 
 
YYYTT 
 
 "YOU, AGAH?I" 
 
 For a moment, with head-quarters behind him, lie 
 had pondered over the General s remark about a wom 
 an s weapon in time of war. Had he been mistaken 
 about the map ? Could it have been on his person and 
 fallen out of his pocket at Lanleyton? "No. Or if it 
 had, she never had written the words which conveyed 
 it to General Lee. She was absolutely incapable of 
 such a thing. For his was one of those natures that 
 is never assailed by doubts until sudden conviction re 
 moves its trust at a blow. He believed in her, and the 
 one flutter of happiness in this crisis was that he did. 
 
 His horror and his determination grew with his 
 comprehension of the charge brought against him, as 
 he hastened along the army street toward his com 
 pany. He recalled many things. He recalled that 
 his love for her and that deep love of country which 
 makes its triumphs and its defeats your personal joy 
 or grief had been born on the same day. Before that, 
 he had had only the faith of a boy in his venerable 
 comrade, so far as human institutions were concerned. 
 To him, loyalty was an instinct as much as a code. He 
 stood accused of giving information that might endan 
 ger his General, Tim, Jimmy, all his men whose hearts 
 had beat with him in the charge, the clank of whose 
 
 303 
 
THE VAGABOND 
 
 sabres, the rattle of whose jests on the march, had 
 given him security and pride. 
 
 Regardless of the hour and its fitness for the jour 
 ney, all controlled by the passion which reduced him 
 to a man in the saddle on a definite errand, he set out 
 with twenty of his troop, Tim and Jimmy at his el 
 bows. The pace he set was that steady trot of the 
 long march; his route was the shortest, by the road, 
 as if he were not in the range of that restless partisan, 
 Southbridge. When the event was happy he loved to 
 detail it for the pleasure of his friends. In trouble 
 he could not talk; he could not help keeping his own 
 counsel. 
 
 "In a time like this it s pleasant to know that you 
 two believe in me, anyway," was all he said. 
 
 They asked no further questions, such is the deli 
 cacy of strong men riveted together by affection. 
 Tim, at least, had seen him before when his jaws were 
 set, a red spot flamed in his cheek, and his eyebrows 
 were drawn together. 
 
 He had come to know the country around as the 
 generals of a hundred years ago knew their Belgium. 
 At the edge of the little grove, a patch of green in the 
 valley from the upper windows of Lanleyton, from 
 which the Vagabonds had debouched on their first 
 charge up the hill, he halted his company and bade 
 them wait for him. He was not going again into her 
 presence with a force at his back. Alone, still at the 
 trot, he rode up the hill and under the trees once 
 more. The sound of a piano made him stop and tie 
 his horse to one of the trunks, on the inspiration of 
 the wide-open door which showed through the foliage. 
 
 Thus did determination riding swiftly to the point 
 304 
 
THE VAGABOND 
 
 again halt under the brake of love. "Walking on the 
 turf instead of the gravel and tiptoeing up the steps 
 and across the threshold, his wish was gratified. When 
 unconscious recognition of the presence of another 
 made her rest her fingers on the keys and turn her 
 head, he was as motionless as a statue, cap in hand, 
 his present suffering forgotten. 
 
 "You again !" 
 
 There was both bitterness and resentment in her 
 surprise, making him realize suddenly how abrupt 
 and ill-favored was his stealthy entrance. 
 
 "Yes," he said. "I beg your pardon. It was the 
 music that made me come in so quietly." 
 
 "And you have another story to tell?" she said, 
 looking suggestively toward the door that his form 
 barred. 
 
 "Yes, I have, more s the pity." 
 
 Without waiting for her to speak the curt dis 
 missal which he saw flaming out of her eyes he 
 poured out his tale and his request in even, passionate 
 tones. 
 
 "What you ask," she replied, "is that I, a lone girl, 
 shall accompany you to the Union lines on your 
 say-so." 
 
 "My say-so?" 
 
 He repeated the words as one whose mind sounds 
 in horror the abysses of a phrase s meaning. It was 
 she, now, who doubted his word. He felt, too, with 
 the suddenness of absurdity thrust in bold relief, the 
 brutality as well as the folly of what he asked. 
 
 She was affected by his exclamation and the blank 
 look of despair that accompanied it, but the memory 
 of the way he had led her to listen to an impossible 
 
 305 
 
THE VAGABOND 
 
 story Helped her to recover herself with the thought 
 that she had been affected in the same way when she 
 saw Forrest play. 
 
 "Yes," she replied. "I know that part of your tale 
 is true. I did meet you when I was a little girl. The 
 rest? I know, too, from your own account that you 
 are a vagabond in search of adventure." 
 
 He started and put up his hand in mute protest. 
 It had been easy for him to keep his composure in face 
 of the General s frigid stare; but the cold doubt in 
 her eyes made him a poor stumbler for words. 
 
 "At least so you seem to me. "What reason have I 
 for believing otherwise? What reason have I for 
 playing a part in the affairs of the Yankee army?" 
 
 "None, I suppose none," he answered, doggedly. 
 "It is to save my my honor that I come to you who 
 alone can save it." 
 
 "I know I I it is hard to resist that call from 
 anyone." She paused in thought. "Your General 
 has the reputation of being a gentleman. If he will 
 personally send me the request by another officer, I 
 will send a reply in my own handwriting, and " 
 
 Her sentence stopped there. Southbridge, in the 
 doorway, one hand on his sabre hilt, not thinking it 
 worth while to frighten Miss Lanley by drawing a 
 revolver, with the other hand tapped the Vagabond 
 lightly on the shoulder. 
 
 "You are my prisoner!" he said. 
 
 If you have ever been caught in such a position, 
 you know how fast you thought, how much faster you 
 may have acted. The Vagabond s instant, overmas 
 tering idea was that his capture meant his conviction 
 in the eyes of the General and his friends. Death 
 
 306 
 
THE VAGABOND 
 
 was as much preferable to it as sleep is to a nightmare, 
 and escape alone could clear him. 
 
 That same trick that had served him once when he 
 stood at a sheriff s side in California must serve him 
 again. Whirling on his heel, with all the force of the 
 movement and the strength of his arm he landed a 
 blow of his naked fist where it would do the most 
 good. Southbridge careened against the casing and 
 his dead weight fell across the threshold. The Vaga 
 bond flicked his revolver in the face of his enemy, 
 stunned physically and mentally by his sudden de 
 scent. 
 
 a You are mistaken," he said. 
 
 "Not at all." Before he could be prevented the 
 Confederate had seized his whistle and blown a call. 
 "My escort is outside and will turn the tables again." 
 
 The Federal saw the point, and saw, too, that there 
 was no time to be lost in acting upon it. Still cover 
 ing Southbridge, he stepped backward to one of the 
 great windows flush with the floor. There he glanced 
 into the startled face of Volilla and said, appeal- 
 ingly: "My honor is at stake. I had to strike. For 
 give me!" Then springing to the end of the porch, 
 he jumped off. 
 
 It was a question of reaching his party before the 
 escort reached him. As he ran, he whipped out his 
 knife, and cut the tie-strap before he bounded into 
 the saddle. Looking back for the first time, as he 
 gave Breaker the word, not a single Confederate, so 
 far as he could see through the peep-holes of the 
 foliage, was in sight. 
 
 In meeting trick with trick, Southbridge, whistling 
 for imaginary relief, had thrown the last trump. The 
 
 307 
 
THE VAGABOND 
 
 Vagabond s first impulse on realizing how he had 
 been played was to go back and make good his arrest. 
 His common-sense, however, quickly told him that 
 Southbridge, with his pistol cocked, was wishing for 
 just such a development. In confirmation, there was 
 a puff of smoke from one of the windows. The aim 
 was good, for the target felt the breath of the bullet 
 on his cheek. "No more shots were fired as he rode 
 across the open space, while both Jimmy and Tim 
 came out from the edge of the grove to meet him ; and 
 this Southbridge, watching through his glasses, took 
 as evidence of a larger escort, and profited by it. 
 
 Looking back from the grove, there was no sign of 
 life about the house on the hill, and the Vagabond 
 was more than ever convinced that Southbridge was 
 unaccompanied. This was the second time he had 
 fled before his enemy; the temptation of combat 
 called for him to return. But he was reminded in 
 time that he could save his honor only by living ; that 
 he carried the message which would lead to proof of 
 his innocence. 
 
 He now became as preoccupied with reaching the 
 General as he had been in reaching Lanleyton. In 
 going as in coming, he took the road in file of twos 
 at a trot that the horses could keep up for the whole 
 distance. To Jimmy s suggestion that they ought to 
 take more precautions he replied, with a little laugh 
 of abandon, that he was in a hurry and there was no 
 danger. Had he not left Southbridge behind ? He 
 was particularly in a mood to believe it nonsensical 
 that in this neutral zone a goblin in the form of "Gin 
 ger" Southbridge s cavalry would receive telepathic 
 notification and fly to any point where a Federal sol- 
 
 308 
 
THE VAGABOND 
 
 dier might appear. It did not occur to the genius of 
 the charge, as it ought and would under other condi 
 tions, that at the gallop any body of horsemen could 
 pass him at a distance and swing across his path. 
 
 His surprise came abruptly as his column, pass 
 ing through a stretch of woods, turned with a bend 
 in the road. Only fifty yards ahead he saw a long 
 line of Confederate cavalry half-way across the road 
 in single file, evidently bent on a surrounding move 
 ment. It was true that no one of Southbridge s men 
 had been within sound of his whistle, and unhappily 
 true that his whole force was riding away to the east 
 ward. Intending to rejoin them later, he had gone, 
 as he usually did when his daily practice rides took 
 him into the neighborhood of Lanleyton, to pay his 
 respects to its mistress. 
 
 On mutual recognition, the Federals stopped, 
 and every Confederate, as if his part for such an 
 emergency had already been outlined to him, wheeled 
 his horse to face the enemy. The Federals were two 
 deep, in close order; the Confederates widely sepa 
 rated, thus making escape impossible without con 
 tact. The negligence that had kept the Vagabond s 
 force close together made a compact wedge against a 
 thin line. Southbridge in the middle of the road, 
 his height and his position making him tower over 
 his men, called to them in a great voice to close in. 
 But the Vagabond gave no time for the execution of 
 the order. His little command charged. 
 
 "Sabre to sabre !" he cried, exultantly, with flash 
 ing blade uplifted, not to his own men, not to the Con 
 federates, but to their commander. 
 
 While Southbridge was a statue, his hand on his 
 309 
 
THE .VAGABOND 
 
 hilt, calculating and stiffening himself in the prop 
 erly cold blood of one receiving a blow, the blood in 
 the Vagabond s veins was like wine, and his brain 
 was swimming with the one thought of breaking 
 guard and a thrust as he passed. He was so near he 
 could see his opponent s lips parted in a smile, when 
 Southbridge, as the situation demanded, lifting his 
 revolver instead of his sabre, fired point-blank. 
 
 With the readiness of the hound when its prey 
 doubles, the Confederates turned and gave chase to 
 the Federals, who encouraged their horses with spur 
 and shout, leaving, in heart-breaking necessity, as the 
 only occupant of the field, their prostrate leader. 
 
 310 
 
XXXIII 
 
 IN HER KEEPING 
 
 In falling, the Vagabond had been stunned. For 
 some minutes he lay motionless. Returning con 
 sciousness was quickened by the caressing touch of 
 something as soft as fine old leather, first on his fore 
 head, then on his cheek. His eyelids parted with the 
 effort of windows stuck in their grooves, and he saw 
 the bent neck, the questioning eyes and ears of a true 
 friend, who, having missed the living weight on his 
 back, would learn why his rider had stopped playing 
 the game so abruptly. 
 
 The wounded man s first dim thought was one of 
 great happiness at the sight of a dumb companion s 
 loyalty, and his first act was an attempt to recognize 
 it with a grateful pat. He tried to lift his hand to 
 Breaker s muzzle, tried as hard as he would to lift 
 a weight beyond his power, and failed. Then he 
 sought the source of his strange weakness. "Don t 
 get scared about a thing till you have a good look at 
 it," he whispered. On the earth beneath him was a 
 clot of blood ; in his side a reddish black hole. He 
 regarded it hazily, comprehended that despite it he 
 was still living, and dismissed the subject quite sum 
 marily. 
 
 His mind became clearer; his strength revived. 
 He looked up and down the road and saw nothing. 
 
 311 
 
THE VAGABOND 
 
 The walls of the depression where he lay shut out his 
 view except for a dusty ribbon s length. Arduously, 
 making many journeys with stages of rest, he lifted 
 himself to a sitting posture. The soil, spongy, soft, 
 and red, seemed to recede and then to press close to 
 him, to rise and fall with the throbs of his brain. At 
 last his eyes were on a line with the fields. Now he 
 could see, if the little red spots would not keep 
 dancing before him. 
 
 "Somthbridge put them there," he thought; "but 
 he didn t know that I could blink them away." 
 
 So far as he could discern, no living thing was near. 
 A bowlder shut out part of his vista. 
 
 "Southbridge put it there," he thought; "but he 
 can t beat me that way." 
 
 He made a great effort to look over it, and fell 
 back in a collapse. Had they got away safely ? Had 
 his friends, whom his folly had led into trouble, es 
 caped ? He looked at the horse, as if making inquiry 
 from one who had seen the finish of the affair. 
 Breaker only seemed to tantalize him with a posture 
 which said: 
 
 "I don t understand it at all. You and I we ve 
 always been ahead of all those other horses. Come 
 on!" 
 
 The fever resulting from his wound crept upon 
 him. His tongue seemed on a grate in an oven. 
 Water, water ! that would put out the red spots. 
 
 "You didn t know water would do it, did you, 
 Southbridge ?" he whispered. 
 
 He recalled that cavalry-men carried canteens. 
 Granting that they did, then he must have one. He 
 looked toward the rings on his saddle-tree from which 
 
 312 
 
THE VAGABOND 
 
 it always hung. It ought to be there the red spots 
 would get in the way I it ought to be yes, it was ! 
 If he rose to his knees he could reach it. He started 
 to rise, and tottered over at full length. His arms, 
 trying to break the fall, had been as ineffectual as 
 two straws. For some time he was prostrate, with 
 out seeing or feeling or thinking, and when his senses 
 came back it was the thirst-devil who brought them 
 with a lash. 
 
 "It s not fair, Southbridge, to hit a man after he s 
 down; but you haven t got me licked not a bit of 
 it!" 
 
 Without a drink he could not reach the canteen; 
 with a drink he was sure he could mount and ride 
 away. He tried to wet his lips against his tongue, 
 and felt only the rubbing of cracked, dry leather, as 
 he slowly lifted himself back to a sitting posture. 
 This accomplished, he smiled with the satisfaction of 
 one who has solved a problem. If he could not go to 
 the canteen, it might be brought to him. Had he not 
 taught his horse a trick not in the cavalry regulations 
 of that day ? He looked up at Breaker with the re 
 solve of an army corps entering upon a charge, and 
 with all the strength of voice that he could command 
 he called the order to lie down, and at the same time 
 seized the hanging bridle-rein. Losing his balance, 
 he was prostrate again, with his hopes on the cast. 
 
 He saw the animal put out those signs which ever 
 indicate his action to the trained rider, and knew 
 that he was to quench his thirst unless the water- 
 bearer fell upon the canteen or upon him. 
 
 "If you trip him I ll pay you back, Southbridge 
 so help me, God, I will!" 
 
 313 
 
THE VAGABOND 
 
 Himself powerless to move, he watcHed Breaker s 
 movement as he would the tumbling of the beams of 
 a prison which were to crush him or to give him lib 
 erty. An evolution which is done so quickly that the 
 spectators on the benches see only a horse up and then 
 a horse down, was to him a process of many stages, 
 till the knees were bent, the weight thrown forward 
 upon them, and the body was on the ground, close- 
 pressing but not resting on his own, and the canteen 
 lying almost at his lips. He drank and drank, and 
 lo ! the red spots were gone. He drank until the can 
 teen was empty and his mind seemed quite clear 
 again, and the whole purport of his position was in 
 range of his comprehension. 
 
 "Oh, the gurgle of it !" he said to Breaker. "It 
 sounds like one of our mountain brooks, so cool to 
 taste, so cool to bathe in, so cool to lull you to sleep 
 when the day s journey is done. There s no line of 
 pickets, no riding up and down, no rule of thumb out 
 there. You shall see. You re going back with me 
 when this business is over this tricking policemen 
 is over and we won t go till it is. We aren t quit 
 ters, my boy. You needn t carry a pack. I ll go 
 afoot on the steep places and ride you only on 
 the levels. But first first we ll meet Southbridge. 
 We ll be as cool as he is next time oh, yes, we 
 will." 
 
 That was the respite from his misery, the imme 
 diate expression of his gratitude and relief to the 
 loyal water-carrier, before he turned to the mission 
 that had brought him, wounded, to the dust. Of his 
 friends safety he was now confident. He realized 
 that they must have had enough start to make 
 
 314 
 
THE VAGABOND 
 
 tain their escape. Fugitive ideas rallying into se 
 quence with pride as field-master, he cried, hoarsely : 
 
 "I ve run away from Southbridge ! I didn t bring 
 her ! I ve led my men into a trap ! I ve been rolled 
 in the dust like a boy who falls off a wagon s tail at 
 the crack of the driver s whip! I d be a baby to go 
 back to the General with a Please, sir and such a tale ! 
 So help me, God, I won t! I won t!" 
 
 Thanks to the water, he was exultant with a new 
 purpose. Though he must pay in full the debt he 
 owed Southbridge, that, in turn, must wait on his 
 honor. His determination became as high as his 
 pulse. But His sabre ! he suddenly thought. It was 
 not in its scabbard. His sabre that emblem of an 
 officer s very existence ! Yes, he remembered that he 
 had it, had drawn it. It must have dropped from his 
 hand when Southbridge shot him. He looked about, 
 and whispered his joy as he saw it lying three or four 
 yards away twenty yards it seemed to him. How 
 could it have fallen so far, he wondered, as he 
 crawled toward it. Once he had it in his hands, he 
 hugged it insanely : 
 
 "I ve work for you, work for you yet," he said, 
 confidentially. 
 
 He drew around the scabbard that had trailed at 
 his side, and after trembling efforts the point by 
 chance found the sheath and went home. It had 
 not been so far away after all, he told himself. But 
 the assurance that would stifle the truth was useless. 
 Those three or four yards had been a terrible march 
 for him. The red spots were coming again. Pooh ! 
 All they needed was drowning. If he had another 
 canteen full of water he would feel fit for a twenty- 
 
 315 
 
THE VAGABOND 
 
 mile ride ; it would be easier, too, to mount. As if 
 in answer to his wish, a pool by the roadside, which 
 he had not seen before, materialized. 
 
 With outstretched hands, that did not steady his 
 body as it sank, he put his lips to it and drank the 
 mire until his tongue tasted mud. The red spots 
 were gone. With the lurch of intoxication, exerting 
 a feverish impulse, he reached his feet and laughed 
 hollowly to think how strong he was, though he had 
 to steady himself out of dizziness by leaning against 
 the horse; how his plan was already as good as ex 
 ecuted. Of course he could mount in the usual way 
 if he chose ; but he had better save his strength, when 
 he might, for a crisis. Had not Father Bob always 
 advised that? With short, staggering steps, that 
 he believed to be sturdy, long ones, he led Breaker 
 to the embankment, clambered upon it, and with a 
 bound found himself in the saddle. The cost was 
 the reopening of his wound, which he did not realize. 
 Had he not had a good look at that and decided that 
 it was not worth being scared about ? 
 
 Through the gathering dusk, riding slowly on the 
 reserve force of anticipation and will, calling out 
 aloud that he was trying to make pain out of a pin 
 prick, in dizzy adherence to a single object, he kept 
 on till he was before the open door which spelled the 
 descent of his fortunes and his hope of happiness. 
 All his ebbing strength was banked on an effort 
 which carried him to a light in the drawing-room, 
 where she had just risen from a chair by the reading- 
 table. His wound now bled so profusely that his 
 hand, involuntarily placed over it, was red between 
 the fingers. His set jaw, ashen face, and feverishly 
 
 31G 
 
THE VAGABOND 
 
 glistening eyes, with his wet and muddied uniform, 
 made a picture of war s reality without the drums, 
 the flags, the cheers, and the shouting. She sprang 
 to her feet with a cry, while he was tottering like a 
 strong column undermined. 
 
 "I came to take you to the General to save " 
 
 He clutched at the door-frame, swooning, and she 
 sased his fall with her own arms. 
 
 Hit 
 
XXXIV 
 
 tfKEPER THAN SHE THOUGHT 
 
 The blood from his wound streaked her skirt ; the 
 weight of his body brought her to her knees as it 
 struck the floor. In order to save his life she under 
 stood that certain things must be done quickly. While 
 with her scissors, snatched from the work-basket, she 
 cut away the cloth from the wound, a servant hastened 
 for cotton, which she stuffed into the vomiting red 
 hole. 
 
 With the first glimmer of consciousness, he felt 
 something heavenly cool crossing and recrossing his 
 forehead and making little side excursions down his 
 cheeks. He partly opened his eyes and then closed 
 them again, lest he should frighten her away, and 
 floated on the elysium of her soft touch, thinking of 
 neither the past nor the future. When she saw that 
 he was breathing regularly again, she drew away as 
 if that had made her service indelicate. 
 
 "Thank you!" he murmured, while through his 
 half -closed lids he saw in her face still another ex 
 pression, new to him, an expression so gentle, so so 
 licitous, so soothing that it made him forget all else 
 save the joy of contemplating it. 
 
 "Is there anything else a drink ?" she asked. 
 
 "If you please. That you put on my face seemed 
 so cool so cool." 
 
 318 
 
THE VAGABOND 
 
 When she brought a glass he tried to rise ; impul 
 sively, she put her hand on his arm. 
 
 "You must not move. It is bad for you," she said. 
 
 So helpless was he that it seemed easy for her to 
 hold him down with the pressure of one slim finger. 
 She held the glass and steadied his head, while he 
 drank the sweetest draught he had ever tasted. 
 
 "So cool, so cool ; thank you," he said. 
 
 When the flow of his wound was stanched, the 
 servants improvised a litter and carried him up the 
 broad stairs with a gentleness which his old-time 
 training vouchsafed to the African. To the sick man 
 it seemed as if he had been borne a thousand feet 
 toward the skies. His face twitched with pain as 
 he was transferred to the bed; but when he felt its 
 soft mattress and she placed a pillow under his head, 
 he smiled in blissful gratitude. 
 
 "How did you let me down so easily when you 
 took me up so far ?" he asked. 
 
 "On a cloud, sah. Jes as easy, jes as easy/ said 
 Marcus Aurelius. 
 
 "On a cloud," he repeated, vacantly. 
 
 His helplessness made him only a brave man and 
 a fallen enemy whose life depended on her care. She 
 would not trust anyone else to give him the medicines 
 which her experience in doctoring on the plantation 
 warranted her in prescribing. After the servants 
 were abed and the house was silent, she sat by his 
 side. The candle threw flickering shadows about the 
 room and over his white face, and now and then he 
 broke into irrational speech. It was a strange posi 
 tion for her to be in. Yet the events had so forced 
 the necessity that she did not think of it in that light. 
 
 319, 
 
THE VAGABOND 
 
 Her whole interest was in the patient, whose fever 
 increased as the night wore on. 
 
 "And this is soldiering," he said, deliriously, "this 
 going back and forth, back and forth this tricking 
 policemen ! It s not my habit. If you put me in a 
 pen I d do my morning walk in a circle, so as not to 
 have to retrace my steps. A man gets to feel as 
 gritty as the sand in an hour-glass. The army keeps 
 turning him over so he can flow back again through 
 the same little hole. Take a handicap, Southbridge, 
 if you want to, only come on come on!" 
 
 When she gave him water he would recur to the 
 cool mountain-streams and the camp-fire s glow. 
 When the torture of pain and thirst mounted to his 
 brain, he was unhorsed, fighting for his life without 
 a weapon. For his strongest delusion was that 
 Southbridge had his sabre. Finally, she brought it 
 to him from the chair where it had been laid in the 
 room below. He put his fingers weakly on its handle, 
 thinking he had it in a grip of iron, and began to 
 banter Tim and Jimmy in the full tilt of action. 
 Once more he was the leader of a hundred vagabonds 
 spoiling for adventure. Lying as if he were dead, 
 except for an occasional turning of his head, he had 
 travelled thousands of miles ; he had crawled in the 
 dust in quest of a drink ; he had led a charge exult 
 antly while she saw that he was growing worse. 
 
 A strong man expending his last gasp against 
 great odds is far more attractive than a strong man 
 in victory. Aside from the bitterness of a family 
 war, aside from the story he had told her, his de 
 termination to take her to the Union lines when his 
 life-blood was pouring from his side, his youth, his 
 
 820 
 
THE VAGABOND 
 
 falling with his face toward the goal, and the fact 
 that he was too weak to realize his position, made his 
 fight against death wholly her own. She had done 
 everything she could for him; she must wait in si 
 lence for the results, and keep the compresses on his 
 head fresh. Nearness had given him a charm she 
 could not deny. He was a type of man who would 
 be a hero to his valet. If she could have expressed 
 her feelings she would have considered him as a 
 splendid, erring brother, whose chivalry had earned 
 him forgiveness. 
 
 Well into the morning she uttered a cry of thanks, 
 for she saw that her medicines were beginning to 
 take effect. His talk, though still irrational, became 
 less erratic, and dwelt more on the things that had 
 made him happy and on those secrets which sanity 
 never imparts. She heard him laying his soul bare, 
 and felt as if she were an eavesdropper ; and yet she 
 remained listening. The simplicity and boyishness 
 of a vagabond s nature were revealed, and she knew 
 by the supremest of tests that the "story" was not the 
 pastime of a soldier s imagination. Her breath 
 caught at every mention of her name a she spoken 
 with affection, almost with awe, as if it stood for an 
 unattainable grace. 
 
 "A house on a hill-side overlooking grassy slopes, 
 and a great mountain in the background, and good 
 horses and finding gold and bringing home the lion s 
 skin for her for Tier and journeys into many 
 strange lands and pleasant places with her with 
 tier!" he exclaimed, finally, and fell into the sleep 
 of exhaustion when the crisis had passed. 
 
 In the whirl of her emotion, she half wished that 
 321 
 
THE VAGABOND 
 
 she had not heard him, and she was half glad that 
 she had. She had the pride of her sex ; she felt the 
 triumph of being loved in this way and he was bet 
 ter. His lips moved again, and she bent her head to 
 listen. 
 
 "Of giving information against my Vagabonds, my 
 General, my country ! There is nothing false in her 
 nothing ! She could not, did not, write it ! I will 
 go for her." 
 
 She stiffened, as one does with a sudden resolution, 
 and pressed her lips firmly together. For some time 
 she watched him, but he said nothing more. When 
 she went to her room an hour before dawn, it was to 
 put on her riding-habit. 
 
 "You are deeper than you think, as a crisis might 
 show," Richard Bulwer had told her. 
 
 322 
 
XXXV 
 
 THE GENERAL DRINKS ALONE 
 
 By fields and lanes and over fences she had rid 
 den as if the success of her mission depended on 
 speed. Her horse s neck and shoulders were spat 
 tered with foam; her face was flushed with exercise 
 and the press of autumn air and keen with her ohject 
 as she appeared before General Huested s tent just 
 as he was about to sit down to his morning coffee. 
 Though a glance had told him half the truth, the 
 lively and charming picture made by the young 
 woman suddenly burst into camp would of itself have 
 caused the spontaneous alacrity with which he sprang 
 to her side to assist her to alight, leaving the officer 
 who had received her from the amazed corporal of 
 the guard feeling rather awkward. 
 
 "I am Miss Lanley. Our house is some distance 
 outside your lines," she said. "Your Captain Will 
 iams came there badly wounded late yesterday after 
 noon. I nursed him through the night. I did not 
 send for a Confederate surgeon, for I feared that he 
 would make him a prisoner, and I thought it unfair 
 under the circumstances that he should be made one. 
 If you will send a surgeon back with me, I think I 
 can assure you that he will run little risk of capture." 
 
 The General bowed from the hips for the first 
 in many weeks. 
 
 323 
 
THE .VAGABOND 
 
 "Captain Jameson, go to Colonel Whipple, of the 
 Second Maine, and present my compliments and tell 
 him to send a surgeon mounted." 
 
 The Second Maine was clear at the end of the line, 
 and Captain Jameson, who had not spoken to a pretty 
 woman for a month, showed, under the mask of his 
 humble salute, that he fully realized the fact. 
 
 "Good-morning, sir, and thank you," said Volilla 
 to the Captain, and, slightly oblivious of the General, 
 she patted Folly s neck and called him a hero. The 
 very deliberation with which she did this was indic 
 ative enough, in a girl of spirit and self-possession, 
 of how great was the strain of her position and how 
 distasteful her journey alone to the enemy s camp. 
 
 "Take this horse and rub him down thoroughly," 
 the General said to his orderly. 
 
 "And walk him a little. He s had a hard run, and 
 it s chilly this morning," she added. v 
 
 "I d carry him, Miss, if you said so," the orderly 
 blurted, though orderlies are to be seen at all times 
 and never heard. He had not spoken to a pretty 
 woman for two months. 
 
 If it was her intention to give the impression of a 
 visitor of state, who had come to do a favor and would 
 go when she pleased, she succeeded admirably. 
 
 Inclining from the hips and smiling, the General 
 held back the tent-flap for her to enter, while the stern 
 warrior had something of the feeling of an inveterate 
 gossip who is about to have a long-puzzling mystery 
 explained. 
 
 "Thank you." She laid her riding-crop on the 
 table and remained standing, though he bowed her to 
 a seat. "I have come, too, to disprove a malicious 
 
 324 
 
THE VAGABOND 
 
 and false accusation against Captain Williams, based 
 on my signature, I believe. Are these your writing 
 materials ?" She turned to the field-desk. "May I 
 use them ?" 
 
 "Yes, certainly," replied the General. 
 
 He was as flustered as a young volunteer in the 
 presence of an old regular. 
 
 "What shall I write ?" she asked. 
 
 He understood her quick appreciation of method, 
 and he was inwardly paying the Vagabond s taste a 
 compliment as he unlocked a drawer in the desk and 
 took out the map. 
 
 "Now, if you please/ he said, and read the su- 
 perscription in her own name. She copied it in a 
 manner as off-hand as if she were taking notes on a 
 lecture, and handed the result to him. 
 
 "Not the same at all," he said, immediately he 
 made the comparison. 
 
 "Of course," she replied. 
 
 "I knew that he was innocent ! I knew he was I" 
 the General exclaimed, in boyish delight. 
 
 She rose, and her manner asked if that was all. 
 But he would listen to no refusal; she shared his 
 breakfast. 
 
 "There is one more question," he said, as he handed 
 her an egg on a tin plate. "The forger must have 
 known both you and the Captain. Do you suspect 
 who he is ?" 
 
 "I am quite certain. He has forged my name once 
 before Aikens, an overseer discharged for fraud 
 and worse. I believe he is an abolitionist, now," she 
 added, a little maliciously. 
 
 "Likely !" said the General, fiercely, "and a quar- 
 325 
 
THE VAGABOND 
 
 termaster the worst combination and the worst 
 enemy the Union army has. I am looking for Mr. 
 Aikens. I remember him, a man in a pepper-and- 
 salt suit and a linen duster with the tails flying." 
 
 "Yes, always flying." 
 
 Thereafter, until the surgeon came, they talked of 
 the Southern officers with whom the General had 
 served in the regulars or had been schooled at the 
 Point. There was a peculiar absence of any feeling 
 toward them other than that, in choosing sides for 
 a game, they had happened to be his opponents. 
 When he had helped her to mount, he said : 
 
 a Tell the Captain that his General sends his love, 
 that no one of his companions was injured, and that 
 they await his return no less anxiously than I." 
 
 "He will be as safe in my house as I can make him 
 until he recovers," she replied. 
 
 "The Captain is a splendid fellow. May I con 
 gratulate you ?" he went on, a little mischievously. 
 
 Too late, he saw the error of this remark ; too late, 
 he saw that he had been the first one to inject into her 
 visit the disagreeable, which he of all men would 
 have guarded against at every turn. 
 
 "Congratulate me !" she exclaimed, contracting her 
 brows. "Congratulate me on having to come unac 
 companied to the Union lines !" 
 
 "To ; on saving the Captain s life." 
 
 "Oh!" She understood now. Her glance of in 
 dignation and anger made him feel smaller than he 
 had since his first day in the awkward squad at 
 the Academy. She was imperious; she was mag 
 nificent "I wish you to know, sir," she said, "that 
 the sole object that brought me here was to remedy 
 
 326 
 
THE VAGABOND 
 
 an injustice done by a loathsome Yankee to a brave 
 Yankee who could not speak for himself. When Cap 
 tain Williams came wounded to my house I made it 
 a refuge, in the name of common humanity. I re 
 gard him as I regard you and every soldier here 
 an unlawful invader, to be fought to the bitter end. 
 Good-morning !" 
 
 Having seen the pair depart, the surgeon feeling 
 decidedly up in the world, the General entered his 
 tent and did something quite unusual. He brought 
 out that bottle and a glass and drank alone. 
 
 327 
 
XXXVI 
 
 SOUTHBRIDGE APPEAKS 
 
 Long before the journey was at an end, the sur 
 geon, unused to riding, had no question about his 
 preference for vehicles, on the score of dignity if 
 nothing else. The saving grace of down-East humor 
 which never surrenders to a predicament kept him in 
 favor with his companion. When Folly took a fence 
 and his own horse refused the obstruction, he said : 
 
 "We have strict orders not to destroy the enemy s 
 property. I wouldn t like to be court-martialed for 
 breaking that top rail." 
 
 So he dismounted and removed not only the top one 
 but four more, as he did in other places. 
 
 The old coachman and the stableman met them at 
 the curb, while the venerable Marcus Aurelius stood 
 in the doorway, feeling something of his old-time im 
 portance as he told of the condition of the patient. 
 
 "He jes woke up an smile an say, Yo here wid 
 me all night ? No, sah, I say, Missy Lanley was. 
 At dat, he look like he had a lump o sugah an could 
 tas e him all de way down to his toes. Den he say, 
 Is she restin now ? I say yo was, t inkin dat de 
 bes way to make him res . Feared jes like he had 
 nothah lump o sugah." 
 
 "I ll announce that you are coming," she told the 
 328 
 
THE VAGABOND 
 
 surgeon, impulsively, "so you you ll not take him 
 by surprise." 
 
 It was a poor excuse, as she realized with a sting 
 ing in her cheeks before she was at the top of the 
 stairs, when she thought of the knowing turn in the 
 surgeon s mouth and the twinkle in his eyes. In 
 truth, she wanted to tell the sick man the news with 
 her own lips ; to enjoy his reception of it as a reward 
 for what it had cost her. That was all, quite all ; the 
 same feeling that makes you watch the face of a 
 friend when he opens the box that contains your 
 present. 
 
 Entering his room softly, not so much from plan 
 as from the dramatic instinct that is inherent in us 
 all, she found him looking vacantly at the wall. At 
 the same instant that he became conscious of her 
 presence she spoke in smiling triumph, in the spirit 
 of the swift ride which still thrilled her, the happy 
 news that she had brought. 
 
 "You are proved innocent ! The General sends his 
 love and wishes for your speedy recovery." 
 
 She saw his face change, as if morning had flashed 
 out of darkness. 
 
 "It was you who did this for me!" 
 
 Such strength as he could command brought him to 
 his elbow. Then he noticed that she was in her rid 
 ing-habit, and that there were spatters of mud on her 
 skirt. 
 
 "You have been to the Union lines on my account ! 
 You have done all this for me!" There was some 
 thing in the way he spoke the "you" that made her 
 regret his knowledge of the fact. "Now you must 
 rest j you will rest," he added, fondly, entreatingly, as 
 
 329 
 
THE VAGABOND 
 
 if to say that this must precede his speaking of many 
 things. 
 
 "Yes. I I only came to tell you. * 
 
 She did not want to look into his eyes again; she 
 sought an opportunity to retreat. 
 
 "And Jimmy and Tim and my Vagabonds? I 
 must know that I" 
 
 "All safe. They wait for you." 
 
 "And you have brought this good news ! You have 
 done all this for me! 9 
 
 He sank back on the pillow, the two pronouns 
 joined in the refrain of his happiness. She did not 
 wish to hear them repeated again, and hastened out 
 without having mentioned the surgeon at all. While 
 he was with the patient she was writing a note to Mrs. 
 Bulwer, an imperative note, which she sent with all 
 haste. 
 
 When the surgeon returned from the sick-room he 
 was in high feather. 
 
 "Look here, did he ride four miles with that 
 wound ?" he asked, breezily. "Or is it an illusion ?" 
 
 Everything, including his own acts, seemed to 
 speak in the Vagabond s praise, she thought, grudg 
 ingly. 
 
 "Yes, a good four miles," she replied, almost dis 
 mally. 
 
 "He s a wonder. That bullet played hide and seek 
 all about his ribs. Fortunately, it got tired near the 
 surface. A slit of the skin and it was out. He s ter 
 ribly weak from loss of blood and fever, but time and 
 careful nursing are all that s needed to do the trick. 
 I know from the marvellous way you have looked after 
 him so far that he will get both." 
 
 330 
 
THE VAGABOND 
 
 Thereupon, that Yankee surgeon, who had a way 
 of caring for himself, asked if he might have a cup 
 of coffee. This developed the fact that he had had 
 no breakfast, and, furthermore, that the black cook 
 had begun to prepare one with plantation extrav 
 agance as soon as the return of her mistress was an 
 nounced. At the head of her own table Volilla made 
 use of her opportunity with the art of an adept. 
 
 "I have done something for one of your officers, 
 and now I am going to ask one of your officers to do 
 something for me/ 7 she said. "The ride I made this 
 morning was an act of mercy. Promise me that 
 you will not let it be generally known or anything 
 about his misfortune in coming to an enemy s 
 house." 
 
 The surgeon recalled the patient s surprise at see 
 ing him after he had been "announced." 
 
 "Why do you smile?" she asked, trying to keep 
 her indignation under. 
 
 "I was thinking how fortunate Captain Williams 
 is. Of course I make only one report to the Gen 
 eral. Not a word to anyone else, believe me." 
 
 "You are very good," she replied. 
 
 "I don t know about that. The breakfast certainly 
 is. It may be acting through me as an agent." He 
 smiled apologetically at his third egg. "You did ex 
 actly the right thing, medicines and compresses both, 
 last night," he went on, changing the subject to a 
 matter that excited his professional admiration. "It 
 was a little surprising not quite expected, I mean, 
 that you should know." 
 
 "One has to know on a big plantation like this," 
 she responded, "or else one wouldn t be doing one s 
 
 331 
 
THE VAGABOND 
 
 duty. I remember I sat up all night with a slave who 
 was ill in much the same way. So I had a specific 
 experience isn t that what you call it ?" 
 
 He looked wonderingly at the great sideboard, the 
 paintings, the slim, regal figure sitting opposite him 
 across the snowy linen, all standing for something 
 with which he was familiar only by reading. 
 
 "You sat up all night nursing a slave a nigger !" 
 he exclaimed, in his honest surprise. 
 
 "Oh, yes. I know we don t do such things in 
 Uncle Tom s Cabin/ because Mrs. Stowe was never 
 in the South." 
 
 "And you did you read Uncle Tom? " 
 
 "Yes, as much as I could. Cousin Richard read it 
 clear through, smiling all the time. My grandfather 
 read two chapters and threw it into the grate. But 
 let s not talk of that. You feel very strongly and we 
 feel very strongly, and the talking time, as Richard 
 says, is over ; isn t it ?" 
 
 As she diverted the conversation into other chan 
 nels she was as unexpectant of any unfriendly inter 
 ruption as he. More than once the difficulty of 
 Southbridge s inevitable appearance had occurred to 
 her among more pressing thoughts, and she had told 
 herself that she must be on the lookout for him and 
 find a way to keep the knowledge of the Vagabond s 
 presence from him. When she heard the clank of his 
 scabbard on the hall-floor she knew that there was no 
 way of escaping a scene, and she awaited his entrance 
 stoically. First, he caught a glint of the surgeon s 
 gilt on a background as blue to him as ever red waa 
 red to a bull, and his hand sprang to his holster ; then 
 he saw who sat at the other end of the table saw 
 
 332 
 
THE VAGABOND 
 
 her acting the host to a Yankee, and a blank stare 
 was followed by an explosive: 
 
 "Sir!" 
 
 The surprised surgeon looked from the big cavalry 
 man to his hostess, as much as to signify that she had 
 his credentials. 
 
 " Good-morning, Jefferson/ she said, affably, ris 
 ing. "Let me introduce Captain Langholm, who is on 
 an errand of mercy." 
 
 The surgeon rose, but Southbridge did not come a 
 step nearer. 
 
 "You may breakfast in a patriot house, sir," he said, 
 "but I assure you, you will sleep in a patriot prison." 
 
 "If the lodging is as good as the fare, I should not 
 mind, except for your company," the surgeon clicked 
 back; for he was not made of putty. 
 
 This was the match to the hot-tempered South- 
 bridge. He drew his revolver, and so did the Fed 
 eral. There might have been an exchange of shots if 
 Volilla had not stepped between them. 
 
 "This is my house, Jefferson. A Virginian is the 
 last to interfere with another s hospitality," she 
 said, simply ; and her remark made shame muffle his 
 rage. 
 
 Without any protest except a dogged shrug of his 
 shoulders, he withdrew. 
 
 Leaving her guest to care for still another egg, 
 which he proceeded to do nonchalantly possibly it 
 was a relief to him to meet the kind of Confederate 
 he had read about she closed the door into the hall 
 and was alone with Southbridge. Her instinct told 
 her that the direct road was the safest and best. 
 Without any suggestion of a certain other story, she 
 
 333 
 
THE VAGABOND 
 
 related how Langholm happened to be in the house, 
 trusting to her tact, frail weapon that she feared it 
 was, to accomplish the rest. 
 
 "We have hospitals, we have surgeons," he said, 
 his animus overwhelming him again. "He was my 
 legitimate prisoner; I rode back and found him 
 gone." 
 
 "Yes, just so. You fail to recognize the joke on 
 yourself. You deserted him and now he s mine," 
 she said, laughing. 
 
 "Because one Yankee forges and gets another into 
 trouble, are we going to help the other out? Be 
 cause he is wounded, is he specially immune from 
 the laws of war ?" 
 
 "No, Jefferson, he s on neutral ground. I am 
 bound to be indebted to no Federal. I am paying him 
 back for his generosity and kindness when his com 
 pany protected this house. You have always been 
 welcome here. Your regiment carries the flag I 
 made. Now I m going to ask a favor in return. 
 This house must be a sanctuary for this man until 
 he is well." 
 
 "There is something more something between 
 you. Your head has been turned. You you are in 
 fatuated I" he cried, and bent over her almost threat 
 eningly. 
 
 Then she became quite confident of attaining her 
 object. She threw back her head and took her time 
 for a trilling laugh of ridicule. 
 
 "Infatuated !" Her tongue played with the word 
 as if it were a ball of variegated colors. "If I were, 
 do you think I d have told you he was here ? Don t 
 you suppose I would have gone at once to the Union 
 
 334 
 
THE VAGABOND 
 
 lines to save him? Infatuated with a California 
 miner !" Of a sudden she grew earnest. "Infatuated 
 with a Yankee ! You you thought that of me !" 
 she cried, in most sincere offence. 
 
 In one of her moments of splendor she had given 
 him again a glimpse of the value of the prize he 
 hoped to win. He seized her hand and kissed it. 
 
 "You forget that I live for you ! I cannot wait ! 
 I must know ! I formed the Virginia Firsts for you. 
 I lead them for you. I shall win victories for you." 
 
 The big man with challenge heating out of his eyes 
 a moment before had become abject. Yet, serious as 
 he was, he could not help speaking with an age-gone 
 grandiloquence. 
 
 She drew her hand away. 
 
 "Remember your promise ! "Not again till the war 
 is over. Your duty is not that of courtier now, but 
 soldier." 
 
 He stiffened in compliance with a bargain that he 
 had agreed to. 
 
 "There is another thing that made me kind to him 
 for your sake/ she said. "You would scarcely want 
 anything but an open field against him, I know." 
 
 He bristled at this suggestion, ingeniously put. 
 
 "He seemed to think it a personal fight. When 
 he was wounded he said that he called Sabre to sabre 
 to you and you fired at him with your revolver." 
 She wanted to make all the points she could, in jus 
 tification. 
 
 "It was war, not a duel," he said. "But I remem 
 ber he did say that ! If he makes it a personal mat 
 ter I will express my regrets. I want no odds from 
 any Yankee!" 
 
 335 
 
THE VAGABOND 
 
 In the sway of this passion lie parted from her. 
 He fully intended to keep to his word as he ascended 
 the stairs. It was the Vagabond s smile, after his 
 surprise had passed, that deterred him a smile of 
 amusement, in face of the fact that he was probably a 
 prisoner again, at the plume in the gentleman s hat, 
 his long, curling mustache, his knotted silk sash, and 
 his gala appearance in general. 
 
 "When you are well !" was all that Southbridge 
 could say, tapping the hilt of his sabre. 
 
 "Yes, when I am well, with pleasure," was the 
 quiet reply, sharper-pointed than the surgeon s knife. 
 
 336 
 
XXXVII 
 
 WHEN THE BACK-LOG FELL 
 
 The Vagabond had the fleeting, whimsical im 
 pression that it was very good of Southbridge to wait, 
 and then, in the exhaustion from the surgeon s opera 
 tion and in the sweet consciousness of the great news 
 she had brought, he slept. 
 
 When he awoke the afternoon was waning. In the 
 clearer vision which his rest had given him, he began 
 to review the events since his meeting with South- 
 bridge on the road. His sense of proportion was 
 drowned in shame, which began with the realization 
 that his enemy had overcome him ; which increased as 
 his memory picked up scattered sayings and doings. 
 Convinced that he had talked much while she minis 
 tered to him overnight, he tried in vain to recall more 
 than the tenor of what he had .said. 
 
 "I whined, I explained, I made excuses," he 
 thought. 
 
 Neither scowling, nor staring vacantly at the wall, 
 nor drumming his fingers would bring more than this 
 concrete example of his humiliation: that he had 
 whimpered to use his own word about South- 
 bridge taking his sabre, and she had appeased the 
 little boy by bringing his plaything. Afterward, as 
 before, all was a blank. 
 
 "Oh, you baby ! you baby !" he told himself. "You 
 337 
 
THE VAGABOND 
 
 aren t fit to be out of skirts yet, and you presume to 
 command a company of grown men like the Vaga 
 bonds!" 
 
 Marcus Aurelius, making the last of many excur 
 sions on tiptoe to see if the patient was awake, now 
 appeared. 
 
 "Well, sah," he said, "yo eyes is pretty bright 
 an so s yo prospec s ef yo keeps yo sangfraw, sah. 
 Dere s nothin like sang f raw, sah" a most dubious 
 suggestion to one who was barely out of danger. 
 
 "And cold water, too, Marcus. I feel too sticky 
 for words. A sponge and a basin, and the cleaner I 
 am, the higher I ll put you in the list of immortals." 
 
 With a positive grace the old fellow bathed the 
 feeble cavalier, changed the sheets, shaved him and 
 combed his hair, meanwhile narrating his wonderful 
 experiences in Paris forty years ago, much to the dis 
 paragement of all French valets. Then he proudly 
 surveyed the result, who, in the glow of his toilet, was 
 an optimist, again thinking how to redeem his past 
 
 "Dere, sah, now yo s fit to receive callers." 
 
 The Vagabond s picture of himself had little in 
 common with the one that Volilla drew upon her own 
 awakening. She had already in her heart given up 
 the idea that he was a play-actor, except of that mag 
 nificent kind that believes in only one part, his own. 
 It was the compelling force of the man, his tantaliz 
 ing, ubiquitous ability to put himself in an heroic 
 pose, that she now recognized in that heart to heart 
 communion that every woman knows in the silence of 
 her own bedroom. 
 
 She had been indiscreet, impulsive, romantic, she 
 told herself. She might have sent Marcus Aurelius 
 
 o o o 
 OUO 
 
THE VAGABOND 
 
 to the Union lines in her stead, and she might have 
 avoided other acts which, abstractly considered, would 
 represent more than a nurse s interest in a patient. 
 Even when she faced Southbridge she had been con 
 scious of a personal feeling, a feeling of downright 
 partisanship for the wounded man because of his dis 
 tress. He had won her admiration by that display of 
 high purpose regardless of all selfish interests which 
 is the most appealing of all masculine traits to the 
 feminine mind, be it ever said to woman s credit. 
 
 "What I did," to put her conclusion in her own 
 words, "was out of a natural desire to pay back obli 
 gations which he has wickedly increased, but which 
 he shall increase no further." 
 
 She arose confidently; and confidently, in due 
 course, she went to his room. By this time he also 
 was sure of his part. 
 
 "You have rested ?" he asked. 
 
 "Yes, beautifully ; and you ?" 
 
 "Slept soundly and awoke with a firm purpose. I 
 must state it, so that we shall start fair." And with 
 that he smiled mischievously. "I am not go 
 ing," he said, slowly, "to propose to you every 
 -day!" 
 
 Again, with the unexpected, he had passed over her 
 foil by a stroke of delicacy which said that he realized 
 her position and had determined to relieve her from 
 any anticipated embarrassment. Nevertheless, as a 
 matter of fence, her two-worded comment was sar 
 castic. 
 
 "How thoughtful !" she said. 
 
 "But I m going to propose just once before I go 
 away. Is that agreed ?" he asked, lightly. 
 
 339 
 
THE VAGABOND 
 
 She puckered her brows. 
 
 "Yes, just before you go away just once." 
 
 "Thank you. Now that s settled, please tell me 
 the one thing I most want to know how is my 
 horse ?" 
 
 "Very comfortable in the stable. We hope to care 
 for him as well as we shall for his owner." 
 
 Grateful now, after the surprise of his remark had 
 passed, that he had relieved her from any feeling of 
 restraint, she seated herself in the chair which she 
 had occupied through the night. 
 
 "I am afraid I shall be your guest your charge, 
 I mean for some time to come," he said. 
 
 "Say guest, please, especially as you are not go 
 ing to propose," she returned, smilingly. "You are 
 very weak, the surgeon says, but your recovery is only 
 a question of time." 
 
 "Yes, that s it; that s what I m trying to realize 
 that I am very weak. Every now and then I make 
 an honest effort to raise my arm to convince myself 
 that I am not shamming. It all seems so uncanny 
 and preposterous to a fellow who has never been glued 
 to a bed before. Yesterday I could bound into the 
 saddle without the help of the stirrup ; to-day I would 
 need a litter and the smelling-salts to get downstairs. 
 It will teach me humility and thoughtfulness. I 
 shall have more sympathy with the sick and the fail 
 ing hereafter." 
 
 While she wished for the fiftieth time that he 
 could not talk so well, her fingers, moving on the table 
 aimlessly, touched something small, hard, and heavy. 
 
 "That s the little thing that the doctor cut out 
 the one Southbridge gave me," he said. 
 
 340 
 
THE VAGABOND 
 
 She shuddered, and held the bit of lead up quiz 
 zically for inspection. 
 
 "I shall have to return his loan/ he added, pleas 
 antly. 
 
 "This same one, I hope." 
 
 "No, that would hardly be fair; his was not sec 
 ond-hand. No, a new one!" 
 
 The blood left her face. She laid the leaden ser 
 pent s sting back on the table with trembling fingers. 
 
 "Please," she pleaded, making a dismal effort to 
 smile, "please promise me that you won t go out of 
 your way to meet Colonel Southbridge. He is my 
 friend. He he has the secret he consents to your 
 being here. Please promise !" 
 
 "She loves him!" he thought, only that; it was 
 enough. 
 
 "I ll not I ll not go out of my way, I promise," 
 he said, finally. "He is one Confederate among 
 many. It is unlikely that I shall ever see him again." 
 
 "Thank you. I I ask it because I know you 
 would win. The way you looked when you said that 
 made me realize it, weak as you are. You would win 
 you always win that s the worst of of you 1" she 
 cried. 
 
 He shook his head. 
 
 "I didn t mean to break out that way," she con 
 tinued. "I should have waited till you were stronger 
 before I asked you to make promises." 
 
 "It isn t much just to win. If it comes to that, I 
 didn t win when I met Southbridge on the road. I 
 have not yet the great fancy of my life, you know" 
 but he checked himself. 
 
 And he was as good as his word about proposing 
 341 
 
THE .VAGABOND 
 
 and better, for lie never mentioned that there had 
 been a story or even the sketch-book he had shown 
 her when he told it. His gratitude was expressed in 
 his quaint conceits and exuberant fancy, in pencil- 
 drawings of Marcus Aurelius, Josephus, and other 
 notables, making a merry convalescence for himself 
 and good company for his hosts. Mrs. Bulwer, who 
 had thrown up her hands in matronly horror on learn 
 ing of the situation, and who had at first regarded the 
 patient with distant censoriousness, ended by won 
 dering how he could have been born north of Mason 
 and Dixon s line. His manners, which she expected 
 to find barbarous, she explained by a gentle line of 
 ancestors whose fortunes had dwindled, leaving the 
 present generation to make his own way in the 
 world. 
 
 Mrs. Bulwer read to him, and both nodded in the 
 process. Yolilla also read to him; and listening 
 to her rich voice, which gave to r s slow and glow 
 ing recognition, and watching the unconscious play 
 of her expression, he was as wide-awake as happiness 
 can make a man. To have pressed his suit, besides 
 being ungracious, which was his first thought, would 
 have deprived him of association with her natural 
 self in the routine of her duties as mistress of an es 
 tate. It was she, because she had the talent, rather 
 than her aunt, who was always doing little things to 
 please him ; she who showed the most intelligent in 
 terest in his stories of the trail, which he told dryly ; 
 she who had Breaker brought into the yard the first 
 time his owner was well enough to be carried to a 
 chair by the window. The bay s coat shone over 
 plump sides and solid quarters. 
 
 342 
 
THE VAGABOND 
 
 "I won t fall off again, old fellow 1" the Vagabond 
 called. "You see," turning to Mrs. Bulwer, "he s 
 one of several who have saved my life. I thank you 
 for being as kind to him as you are to me." 
 
 "Now, I ve always said that a man who loved a 
 horse and whose horse loved him could not be so very 
 bad," she told him. 
 
 "Thank you, Mrs. Bulwer," he replied, with mock 
 solemnity. 
 
 "Of course, they can be bad if they try by invad 
 ing a sovereign State," she rejoined, with a reproving 
 shake of her finger. 
 
 He received her little reproofs pleasantly or met 
 them with banter, or, sometimes, when she tried to 
 bring him to her view of the war, with the logic of 
 his simple experience. Between him and Volilla, 
 however, no argument was ever passed on this sub 
 ject. Both shunned it instinctively. Only once was 
 it mentioned, even indirectly, and then absent-mind 
 edly, when her needle was slipping in and out of 
 another Confederate banner. 
 
 "You make the stars so well," he said, "that there 
 ought to be more." 
 
 "The flag is not for your side, sir; it is for the 
 fearless minority." 
 
 There was in her every act kindness and delicate 
 hospitality, which he had made easy for her in one 
 sense, which he had made hard for her in another, in 
 that he had the faculty of doing the right thing when 
 it would have served her sense of partisanship better 
 if he had done the wrong one. 
 
 As soon as he could make his way downstairs with 
 out help (the ladies watching and Marcus Aurelius, 
 
 313 
 
THE VAGABOND 
 
 most pessimistic, at his elbow), he joined them at 
 dinner. In honor of the event the kitchen became 
 an African tyrant s stronghold, and the silver, some 
 of which the Vagabond had taken from Aikens s pock 
 ets, adorned the table and the sideboard. For all 
 the talk of that meal or of any other that followed, 
 no stranger would have known but he was a welcome 
 neighbor or a relative. With the feeling of one who 
 is strongly held and strongly called, he looked for 
 ward to the time of his going. His desire to be with 
 his men again was balanced by the fear of putting a 
 dream to the alternative of coming true or of being 
 shattered. 
 
 Finally, he set a Monday for his departure. Mrs. 
 Bulwer said that he must not think of such a thing ; 
 Volilla counselled wisdom, and Marcus Aurelius 
 cited a number of relapses, not to say deaths, as the 
 result of over-confidence, which were, doubtless, the 
 fruit of his resplendent tropical imagination. So 
 they compromised on Wednesday, which came all too 
 quickly. At times, he had read a line which he 
 thought was hopeful ; again, she was a sealed book to 
 him. Could she have done so much for him merely 
 in the name of courtesy and obligation ? Alas, that 
 was the fine thing about her ; she could. 
 
 He thought that he would like to exercise the priv 
 ilege which he had reserved for himself under the 
 same circumstances that had favored the telling of 
 his story. She was never so charming to him as when 
 on horseback ; words had never sprung so easily to his 
 lips as when they bent their heads over the sketch 
 book in the sheltered lane. 
 
 "I ought to have a little practice for my journey/ 
 
THE VAGABOND 
 
 he said at the breakfast-table Tuesday. "May I join 
 you for your ride to-day ?" 
 
 "The doctor couldn t think of allowing such a 
 thing!" she declared, promptly. "I m surprised at 
 you, indeed, Captain you a cavalry-man! Why, 
 you would be so lame that it would be torture to 
 mount to-morrow. No, no/ 7 playfully, "I m respon 
 sible for your care, and I sha n t let you have Breaker 
 to-day." 
 
 There was no going back of her reply, though he 
 could tell by the flicker of a glance that she gave him 
 what its real object was. 
 
 Neither in the morning nor in the afternoon did 
 she permit herself to be alone with him. At dinner 
 the talk ran on California, the safest of subjects. Her 
 sense of hospitality and her interest in the guest, of 
 whom she had grown exceedingly fond, kept Mrs. 
 Bulwer in the drawing-room till eleven. 
 
 "I ll sit here for a time, if you don t mind. I like 
 the fire," he said. 
 
 The evenings were becoming chill, and the logs had 
 been lighted after sundown. 
 
 "You mustn t stay up too late. You ll need all 
 your strength for to-morrow. Good-night," Volilla 
 said, leaving the room at the same time as her aunt. 
 
 He sat watching the blaze, his legs extended, and 
 knocking one foot against the other nervously. 
 
 "She doesn t mean that I shall speak at all," he 
 told himself. "Her conduct while I ve been here is 
 her answer, and she expects me to understand. To 
 morrow the sand will be put back in the hour-glass 
 and be sent through the daily routine." 
 
 The door was opened softly, and he sprang up, to 
 345 
 
THE VAGABOND 
 
 see her advancing into the room. She was never more 
 exasperatingly beautiful, he thought. The fire-light 
 played on her hair in quivering gleams; the mole 
 dipped into the dimple in a faint smile of polite de 
 termination. Her pose as she stopped before him was 
 that of one forearmed for a set conflict. She had 
 promised to let him propose : now was his time, her 
 manner plainly said. He met her perversity with the 
 same serene cheeriness of demeanor as on the morn 
 ing he joined her on the drive. Bowing, he placed 
 a chair before the grate. She hesitated, then seated 
 herself. Still he was silent, leaving her to speak 
 first. 
 
 "The back-log is going to fall soon, and I came back 
 to see it," she said, finally, with some embarrassment. 
 
 "I saw your face in the flame plainly before you 
 came in," he remarked, abstractedly. "It was not 
 then vexed. It was radiant, as it has been in every 
 camp-fire flame for twelve years. When you think of 
 what might be, why not think of the best that might 
 be ? And always I have wondered if we should ever 
 truly sit looking into the same fire and reality should 
 have taken the place of fancy " 
 
 "I did not agree that you should tell the story 
 again !" she put in. 
 
 "I was not telling it. I need not to tell it." "Now 
 he turned, and, looking into her eyes, spoke in tense, 
 quivering sincerity: "You know it! My every 
 glance, my every act has told you. Take all the hap 
 piness and all the ambition in the world and make it 
 into a world by itself and it is my love for you." 
 
 For an instant her gaze had met his ; then she rose. 
 
 "It is impossible," she said. "Good-night !" Part 
 346 
 
THE VAGABOND 
 
 way across the room she turned and added desper 
 ately: "Besides, I don t love you I don t love you!" 
 
 "Tell me this ! Tell me you believe that story 
 you believe that I have been honest honest!" 
 
 "I do. And I I have tried to be kind and chiv 
 alrous only that only that !" 
 
 And she was gone, and he was standing alone in 
 the great room of a hostile house, he realized, when 
 the back-log fell, with a volley of sparks. 
 
 347 
 
XXXVIII 
 
 SABRE TO SABRE 
 
 At breakfast both were in command of that half- 
 bantering good-humor which was their most feasible 
 common ground. When the moment of parting was 
 at hand, the heartfelt now of his gratitude to his hosts 
 was unrestrained by formality. 
 
 "You saved my life! You have cared for me as 
 only such as you could care for a sick man. Had I 
 been a Confederate and a relative you could not have 
 done more. For haven t you avoided every opin 
 ion that might have offended me? Haven t you 
 shown how far above war and politics a woman s 
 kindness is ? I can t repay you, except by doing as 
 much for you and yours. But you must know that I 
 am a better and a broader man, and that to you is, I 
 know, the greatest of rewards." 
 
 "The very greatest," said Mrs. Bulwer. "Be 
 careful, won t you, there s a dear. Richard and you 
 and so many " Her voice faltered, as thousands 
 of mothers voices did in those days. "The strongest 
 and bravest ; whether it s to be one nation or two 
 we need them !" 
 
 On her part, Yolilla the last touch of her delicate 
 thoughtfulness told him that she had had a groom 
 take the kinks out of Breaker s legs in a preliminary 
 
 US 
 
, THE VAGABOND 
 
 canter, lest his pace be too spirited for a convales 
 cent. 
 
 "If, when the war is over, you should ever come 
 this way again," Mrs. Bulwer added, as he mounted, 
 "Richard as well as myself would be glad to see you 
 at our home." 
 
 When he had spoken his thanks for this gracious- 
 ness to a stranger whose introduction had been 
 scarcely regular, he glanced at Yolilla. Would she, 
 too, ask him to come again as a friend ? 
 
 "It s so fortunate! You re going to have perfect 
 autumn weather," she said, hastily. "Good-by, Mr. 
 Williams !" 
 
 "Good-by, Miss Lanley. God bless you for your 
 kindness I" 
 
 He did not look back after he had spoken ; and, pat 
 ting his horse s neck to keep him down to a walk, he 
 rode away. 
 
 "Back to the hour-glass, Breaker !" he was think 
 ing, as he turned into the road. "We ll see the war 
 through if it takes twenty years. And then breaK 
 the glass let the wind carry the sand whither it 
 will. Father Bob won t be on the trail, and there ll 
 be nobody to give the gold to. I did climb the moun 
 tain; I did find the mine, and Tim and Jimmy 
 can have it. I ll find another. I ll keep moving; 
 that s the only thing. Pooh! We aren t babies, 
 are we, Breaker? There ll be plenty of fighting, 
 good fighting, to drive a man s heart back to its place 
 when it seems to choke his throat. And we ll keep 
 our promise, Breaker, about Southbridge. But we 
 won t run away from the plume and the aash, and 
 we won t be murderers, either." 
 
 349 
 
THE VAGABOND 
 
 At that moment Southbridge was waiting under 
 the cover of a tree, where he had been curbing his 
 impatience since dawn. No man had ever been more 
 restless for a fair field which would relieve him of 
 self-imposed aspersion. The "when you are well" 
 which he had spoken in the sick-room he had meant 
 to convey as definite an impression as pistols and coffee 
 for two ; in fine, that the Vagabond should not return 
 to the Union lines without giving him satisfaction. 
 While the Lanley house sheltered the enemy he would 
 never enter it ; but this did not keep him from being 
 informed through a servant s frequent journey ings 
 of the time of the guest s departure. So it happened 
 that he reined his horse fairly across the Vagabond s 
 path within a hundred yards of the Lanley gate. 
 
 "I thought so," he said. 
 
 "You thought what?" the Vagabond asked, in sur 
 prise. 
 
 Southbridge had changed his position so that the 
 two rigid figures were facing each other over their 
 horses ears and neither had the advantage of the other 
 in ground, position, or composure. 
 
 "Oh, I ll be exact," he said, contemptuously. "You 
 shall have no complaint on that score. I thought that 
 I should have to come after you if I wanted you to 
 keep your word." 
 
 "I did not say that I would seek you. I am not 
 seeking you now," was the Vagabond s reply. 
 
 "No-o?" Southbridge hung on to the rising inflec 
 tion grimly. "No, I judge not. But you have not 
 forgotten my last words. Are you well?" 
 
 "Yes." 
 
 "Well enough to fight?" 
 350 
 
THE VAGABOND 
 
 "Yes; if I have a cause." 
 
 And then Southbridge in a word supplied one 
 which no soldier could resist. 
 
 It was not necessary for the Vagabond to exert 
 himself to be calm, as he had feared he must when he 
 and the flowery cavalier should meet. He had, as yet, 
 for one thing, a trace of the languor of a convalescent. 
 Tragic as the situation was, he found humor in it, 
 and he had no great object to hold him to life just 
 then except the Vagabonds, which Jimmy and Tim 
 could lead as well as he. He was subdued by the con 
 trast, so in keeping with the satire of the time, be 
 tween the gentle domesticity he had left and the male 
 savagery he had encountered. The spectacle of two 
 men slashing each other with no end but the gratifica 
 tion of personal enmity appealed to the sense of the 
 ridiculous, which is always cooling. Having often 
 longed half-whimsically to have Southbridge on the 
 edge of a precipice, with room for only one, his desire 
 was granted. It was as unnatural for the masculine 
 being to fly in the face of such a challenge as for a 
 woman to desert her child. Yes, death he little 
 minded ; the humiliation of being outplayed by this 
 man he did mind tremendously. 
 
 "Your weapons pistols at ten paces or sabres at 
 one?" Southbridge demanded. 
 
 "As we are as cavalry-men should." 
 
 "Good! Here s the place! Here and now!" He 
 nodded over his shoulder to a vacant field. 
 
 "Sha n t we be seen from the house?" the Vag 
 abond suggested. 
 
 "You chose the weapons. I choose the ground." 
 
 The spectacular in Southbridge 7 s nature hoped for 
 351 
 
THE VAGABOND 
 
 nothing so much as that his lady from her balcony 
 should behold behold is the fit word her champion 
 in the lists beat down his adversary. 
 
 "As you will!" 
 
 For the first time the Vagabond s face, which had 
 been inscrutable in its calm, broke into an unconscious 
 smile such a smile as when he had his first glimpse 
 of the Cavalier on the Lanley porch. 
 
 It was the spark to Southbridge s temper. He 
 cried an oath and rode on ahead to the other side of a 
 level as big as a base-ball field ; while the Vagabond, 
 his scheme of offence and defence very clear to him 
 now, rode to the middle of it. He laughed softly, as 
 his adversary turned and faced him, at the picture 
 they would make for a cartoonist s pencil. 
 
 The two men on the verge of a combat for which 
 every cavalry-man is trained and which seldom oc 
 curs but when it does is to a charge what the turret 
 is to architecture barring a common chivalrous 
 quality, were as different as nature could make 
 them. Southbridge was over six feet in height. 
 He was in his full array of knotted silk sash, Span 
 ish spurs, tasselled boots, and plumed hat. His horse, 
 a hundred pounds or more lighter than his oppo 
 nent s, was pure white the only one in the Virginia 
 Firsts. "Then my men will know where I am and 
 so will the enemy, please God," its owner said. 
 
 The Vagabond was the thicker set. At an angle 
 on his reddish hair sat lightly the jaunty fatigue-cap 
 of the day, and otherwise his uniform was unorna- 
 mental and regulation. Of the two, for the size of 
 his frame he had much more closely knitted mus 
 cles before illness had softened them ; and, again, his 
 
 352 
 
THE VAGABOND 
 
 bones would not so much hamper mobility. In every 
 other respect, including his horse, when agility alone 
 was demanded in a mount, he was at a disadvantage. 
 He had not been drilled in the cavalry exercises at 
 West Point. The little sabre practice that he knew 
 had been gained in four months training. Yet, as 
 he sat on Breaker in the middle of that field, he felt 
 like granite. 
 
 "The other side ! That s your privilege. As much 
 start as you please," Southbridge called. 
 
 "Oh, thank you, I am content." 
 
 The even tones added fuel to the flame of South- 
 bridge s anger. 
 
 "Are you ready ?" he sang out, fiercely. 
 
 "Yes, even waiting." 
 
 The Confederate s sabre was drawn from its scab 
 bard in a flash; it was circled around his head in 
 exultation as his horse sprang forward. He counted 
 upon a slashing blow, reinforced by the momentum 
 of his flight, to end the fray. The other had patted 
 Breaker s flank in a way that Breaker understood, and 
 steed and man seemed a part of the landscape. An 
 onlooker might have thought them stricken with 
 paralysis by the fear of their adversary and hopelessly 
 awaiting Nemesis to overtake them, or nothing more 
 than a dummy that a mad trooper had set up for a 
 target. 
 
 The Vagabond had unsheathed his sabre, but he 
 cut no dashes with it. He held it firmly, almost on 
 a level with Breaker s ears, and while Southbridge s 
 lips were parted and his eyes glazed by feverish pre 
 occupation, his own were calmly smiling. Human 
 nature not beside itjself, not trained, would have 
 
 353 
 
THE VAGABOND 
 
 swung back to let that wild animal and wild man 
 pass, out of the sheer instinct that makes a bahy 
 blink. When the enemy was near, so near that he had 
 already risen in his stirrups to strike, the Vagabond 
 leaned over to the side by which he was to pass and 
 shot his sabre fairly toward the forehead of the 
 flying horse. The horse reared to escape the glint 
 of steel, thereby putting the target beyond his rider s 
 range and making his rider s blow an inconsequent 
 hissing through the air. 
 
 As Southbridge came to a stand-still thirty or forty 
 yards away and turned around, the Vagabond was 
 again facing him. 
 
 "You ride well!" the Yankee called, now feeling 
 somewhat weak. 
 
 "I thought you wanted to fight!" was the answer. 
 
 His restless horse prancing, he began moving in 
 a circle, with the Vagabond for its centre. 
 
 "Not at all," the Vagabond said, cheerfully. "Not 
 I, but you. I only want to be accommodating." 
 
 That was too much. Southbridge drove his spurs 
 into flanks already bleeding. This time his sabre was 
 not uplifted. It was drawn back ready to thrust 
 into any opening that offered. The Vagabond 
 now sat erect in guard. With the thunderous ap 
 proach of his enemy Breaker swerved a little, else 
 gray knee would have locked with blue knee. South- 
 bridge, so recklessly contemptuous of any skill on 
 the part of his adversary that he had not his wrist 
 through the cord, lunged, and the Vagabond, with a 
 swing upward, struck the weapon near the hilt and 
 sent it flying into the air. 
 
 It caught the sun in shivering gleams, and seemed 
 354 
 
THE VAGABOND 
 
 certain to fall near enough for him to reach it first 
 and then, with the dexterity and quickness of a hand 
 ball player, Southbridge caught it by the hilt as it 
 fell. The Vagabond could not withhold his admira 
 tion. 
 
 "Bravo!" he called. 
 
 The humiliation of being disarmed by a tyro was 
 spur enough, without the thought that Volilla might 
 have seen all from her window, to drive Southbridge 
 to desperation. He craved the blood of that figure 
 which now touched its cap in polite salute, and he 
 determined to charge and recharge till the suspense 
 was over. 
 
 Breaker had been extremely patient for a veteran. 
 He did not reason elaborately, as the talking horses 
 of fiction do. Aside from any effort between his 
 rider and the other man, the fight had now become 
 personal with him. That namby-pamby white horse, 
 with his long mane and tail and airs to go with them, 
 had snorted by him once, and a second time had 
 kicked dust in his eyes. An ancestry which roamed 
 the earth in hordes and fought for chiefship of the 
 drove would not permit him to stand by for a third in 
 sult. His curving neck and pounding forefoot ex 
 pressed as much to his master, who let him go; 
 and when once more the combatants could see the 
 whites of each other s eyes, the two-footed gave the 
 four-footed comrade a signal that meant "Close in." 
 
 Now the bay s superior weight and his reserve 
 energy counted. The horses shoulders came to 
 gether at the same instant that steel ground on steel, 
 till hilt met hilt, and, with the impetus of Breaker s 
 attack, men and beasts went down to the dry turf 
 
 355 
 
THE .VAGABOND 
 
 together. In that interval, when two determined, 
 straining faces were close to each other, the Vaga 
 bond dropped his own weapon, seized Southbridge s 
 sabre wrist, weakened the grasp, and, falling atop his 
 combatant, was the first to rise, with the captured 
 blade in his hand. 
 
 "Is that fair ? If not, we can begin over again." 
 
 "It is," said Southbridge, rising as if his body was 
 weighted with a heart of lead. 
 
 The Vagabond picked up his plumed hat and 
 handed it to him. Southbridge flung it onto his head. 
 
 "It is!" he repeated, "for we fought as cavalry 
 do." He paused, while he regarded his enemy 
 stoically. "You are a clever soldier!" he said, slowly, 
 admiringly, bitterly. 
 
 The Vagabond offered his hand. Southbridge re 
 fused it with a glare, and remounting rode away, not 
 by the road but by a lane running far to the rear of 
 the house. 
 
 "Now I am back in the nineteenth century again," 
 the victor thought. "But you weren t a remnant. 
 You were a magnificent specimen." 
 
 He watched the stalwart figure of his enemy until 
 it disappeared from view. Then he suddenly felt 
 himself so weak that he had to lean on the shoulder 
 of Breaker, which he patted lovingly, for support. 
 All his strength had gone into the strain of smiling 
 in the fight for life. While he rested thus, weak 
 enough to have been overcome by a boy in knicker 
 bockers, he heard a footstep, and looked up to see 
 Volilla at his side with a flask in her hand. 
 
 "You must need a little brandy after such an ef 
 fort" 
 
 356 
 
THE VAGABOND 
 
 "Did you see it the fight ?" he asked. 
 
 "Yes," she replied, as disinterestedly as ever in her 
 kindness, unscrewing the top of the flask and hand 
 ing it to him. 
 
 He tilted and tilted it till he felt the few remain 
 ing drops on his tongue. 
 
 "Oh, it was nearly empty, wasn t it!" she ex 
 claimed. "I seized it in a hurry, not thinking. If 
 you ll wait I ll bring some more. Besides, it was 
 unpardonably thoughtless of us to let you go away 
 with an empty canteen." She unfastened it from 
 the rings on his saddle-tree without asking his yes or 
 no. "I ll fill it," and she was starting back. 
 
 "It is unnecessary, believe me ! I can dip it in the 
 first stream." 
 
 "And get the fever! You ll wait for it, won t 
 you?" she asked; and because that mole was dipping 
 into the dimple as she asked, he perforce consented 
 like the fool he was, he told himself to further 
 torture. 
 
 "Thank you!" she said. "One of our officers 
 fought you when you were ill, and it s only fair that 
 someone should recognize the fact." 
 
 He wished heartily that she had not come to pay 
 another of her self-imposed obligations. Her kind 
 ness had become a two-edged sword. He wanted no 
 more stoical leave-takings, he thought, as he dropped 
 to the turf and began paying compliments to the tri 
 umphant Breaker, who still faced in the direction by 
 which that namby-pamby white horse had left the 
 field. 
 
 When she returned she was on Polly s back. Her 
 hand trembled as she passed him the canteen. He 
 
 357 
 
THE VAGABOND 
 
 fastened it on the saddle and mounted. Then, turn 
 ing toward her and lifting his cap for farewell a 
 farewell in terrible earnest he saw on her face that 
 far-away expression of the day of her grandfather s 
 death. 
 
 "I ll ride with you a little way/ she said, in a 
 kind of indecision, "to make sure that you get on 
 safely." 
 
 "I had not expected so much," he said, not very 
 pleasantly. "You are a most devoted nurse." 
 
 She rode on beside him in silence long after they 
 had reached the road. 
 
 "I m sorry that difference took place at your very 
 door," he observed, finally. "But we men are im 
 pulsive brutes." 
 
 To this she said nothing for some time, and then 
 her remark, made angrily, did not seem in reference 
 to his, but rather a part of a tempestuous train of 
 thought. 
 
 "I could not prevent it. Fight you would. Fight 
 you did. I knew you would make him blind with 
 rage. Oh, if I d been a man ! If I had been against 
 you I would have smiled back at you and met 
 your cold blood with blood as cold and steel as 
 cold!" 
 
 So Southbridge s humiliation was hers, he thought ; 
 and he said, looking straight ahead: 
 
 "He was uninjured. I kept my promise." 
 
 Again there was silence, except for gusts of wind 
 twittering in the tree-tops and the measured cluck of 
 their horses hoofs in the dust. Heavy minute on 
 heavy minute they rode, while he, glancing now and 
 then out of the tail of his eye at her, saw her beauti- 
 
 358 
 
THE VAGABOND 
 
 ful in the outraged pride of her cause and never once 
 lifting her far-away gaze from the road. 
 
 "Yes. You took his sabre away you, a sick 
 Yankee as if it were a boy s, made of tin took it 
 away from a colonel of Virginia cavalry !" she said, 
 slowly, as much to herself as to him. "And he fought 
 you when you were ill !" 
 
 "No. He asked me if I were well enough. I said 
 that I was. The outcome is no great discredit to him 
 and certainly no credit to me," he replied, desperately. 
 "I never did care for tricking policemen except as a 
 means of escape. I wanted a mine, a mountain, 
 and a " 
 
 "Don t!" she interposed, sharply. "You make 
 light of your victory over a West Pointer, a Virgin 
 ian, a colonel of cavalry, as if you did such things 
 every day." 
 
 "No ; to show how little it counts. He may be a 
 much better soldier than I. The war is not settled in 
 personal contests." 
 
 "But you won you won!" she repeated. "You 
 always win that s what is horrible in you." 
 
 "Not always not in the greatest thing of all ! Oh, 
 I wish you would go !" he exclaimed, almost ve 
 hemently. "Can t you see that you are breaking my 
 heart?" 
 
 She made no reply. She did not even look up. 
 They kept on a quarter of a mile farther, while she 
 worked the reins in her fingers nervously, her lip 
 quivering. Finally, she allowed her horse to fall 
 behind and to stop altogether, as he did his a few 
 paces beyond her. And she was smiling, he saw, as 
 only she could smile; and the sunlight itself, playing 
 
 359 
 
THE YAGABOOT) 
 
 on her adorable hair, seemed to have caught her 
 change of mood. 
 
 "I don t want to break your heart, and I don t 
 want you to win," she said, and touched the whip to 
 Tolly. 
 
 He watched her till she was out of sight around a 
 bend, then said: 
 
 "It s a lonely roa^L now. Come, Breaker I" 
 
 8(5(1 
 
XXXIX 
 
 UNOEETAINTY 
 
 His life had been one of Yes and No, his asso 
 ciates rugged, outspoken men. Feminine subtlety 
 was a domain which he had explored only enough to 
 prepare him for new wonders. While Breaker car 
 ried him slowly, his brain travelled swiftly in new 
 fields. Recollection of Felicia s contemptuous scorn 
 on the battle-field in contrast with her charming sur 
 render at a cot-side became illuminating. With the 
 transformation of one who sees theory proved in 
 practice, he understood how a woman could refuse, 
 expecting refusal to be taken for consent. Weak to 
 the point of lightheadedness from the reaction of his 
 effort against Southbridge, he was in a state to make 
 a conjecture an illusion. The vehement "I don t love 
 you," of the previous night, became "I do." Her 
 coming to him after the fight, her ride at his side, 
 were no longer inexplicable. Her smile, the cheer 
 of her voice at their parting, bore to the faint Vaga 
 bond an unmistakable message. In action she had 
 confessed superbly what her tongue could not. 
 
 With this transformation, the dust-covered stalks 
 of the dying weeds by the roadside became as beau 
 tiful as orchids. His reins hung limp ; his eyes were 
 almost closed, and his lips were parted in the deli- 
 
 361 
 
THE VAGABOND 
 
 clous fever of love s triumph. Of what moment was 
 it to him that there was an army to the North and 
 an army to the South ? Of what moment were taps 
 and reveille ? Why shouldn t he journey leisurely 
 when ahead he saw neither fences nor trees nor sky, 
 but his heart s desire, smiling as she was in his last 
 glimpse of her smiling in a woman s consent, he be 
 lieved. He heard the purling of a mountain-stream ; 
 the hum of his machinery taking out the wealth of 
 the mine that he had found for her; and he trans 
 ferred his vision to a California landscape; he set 
 her in a house of his building, and rode in her com 
 pany over their lands, with Folly s ears in line with 
 Breaker s. 
 
 "I ll make myself worthy! I ll make myself 
 worthy,, Breaker!" he said. 
 
 All too soon he heard the call of a picket, which 
 made him drop his revery as if the man in blue were 
 an eavesdropper. As quickly it came back again, and 
 he was seeing, not soldiers, not a camp, but her face 
 as he went, as military etiquette required, to report 
 to his superior before going to his company. The 
 General s warm congratulations, which otherwise 
 would have thrilled him to the finger-tips, were only 
 a drop into the full cup of his happiness, and the 
 heartiness of the recipient s thanks was the expression 
 of his feeling toward the Creator for making the 
 world so fair, rather than toward the General specifi 
 cally. This time he was not a man under charges 
 with military formality pressing down his indigna 
 tion, but a guest occupying a chair with a beaming 
 instead of a scowling authority opposite. When they 
 had talked for some time, the General brought out 
 
 362 
 
THE VAGABOND 
 
 that famous bottle, and then, with a teasing glance, 
 asked : 
 
 "Did you get the girl ?" 
 
 "I have hopes, sir, and you a secret to keep, sir." 
 
 "Good! Precisely, my boy," came the congratu 
 lation and the answer to the hint. 
 
 The General seemed in no hurry to part with him. 
 He made talk till they heard the tramp of hoofs 
 (which was the fruition of a plan on which he had 
 speeded an orderly), when he drew aside the flap of 
 the tent and the Vagabond looked out upon his Vaga 
 bonds two deep, with their sabres so many upright 
 gleams beside their bronzed faces in greeting of their 
 leader. 
 
 "The manner of your return is some reparation 
 for the manner of your departure," the General re 
 sponded. "You may well be proud of them. When 
 Southbridge chased them right into our lines they 
 swore, they were fairly insubordinate bless em ! 
 because I wouldn t let them return to attack the whole 
 Confederate army to get you back for I supposed, 
 of course, that you were a prisoner." 
 
 The Vagabond longed to go to each stalwart, loyal 
 fellow and clap him on the shoulder in harmony of 
 spirit, in memory of the work they had done and in 
 promise of the work they were yet to do together. 
 The instant his leg was over the saddle, Breaker flew 
 to the leader s place as he would to a waiting stall 
 with a full bin. 
 
 "Think of that, you slim piece of impertinence, 
 Jimmy Pool !" said Tim Booker, after they were dis 
 mounted and lounging in the leader s tent. "Think 
 of a man that had a hole clean through his body look- 
 
 363 
 
THE VAGABOND 
 
 ing as cocky as if lie had never been flat on his back 
 with the doctor pulling on his gloves and the under 
 taker at the door!" 
 
 "Hat and boots, I m glad to see you back," drawled 
 Jimmy. 
 
 "Why do you put in the hat and boots ?" Tim in 
 quired. "You may run short of words some day and 
 repent the waste." 
 
 "Humph!" ejaculated Jimmy. 
 
 "More waste !" chuckled Tim. "It s ruinous." 
 
 "You look here, Timothy" Jimmy was almost 
 angry "I want you to know that I think just as 
 much of the Vagabond as you do, and I ve worried 
 just as much about him as you have." 
 
 "Yes, you think it," Tim threw back his head and 
 let out such a laugh as had fascinated the Vagabond 
 in the corn-rows, "and I say it for both. Why, if you 
 talked as much as I did I d have nobody to listen to 
 me I wouldn t like you at all, Jimmy Pool; that s 
 a fact." 
 
 "And if you turned as silent as I, Tim, I d be as 
 lonesome as a man who s moved away from the roar 
 of Niagara Falls." 
 
 "And what is the news ?" the Vagabond asked. 
 
 "McClellan rides around the army every day to 
 make sure that none of his lambs have strayed away 
 where the naughty, horrid Johnny Rebs might hurt 
 em. He always looks just as comfortable and know 
 ing as the cat that swallowed the canary. But he 
 hasn t swallowed the canary. He wouldn t be guilty 
 of shedding blood. If a mosquito bit him he d throw 
 up breastworks. He s terribly worried because he 
 hasn t more men. He d like every able-bodied man 
 
 364 
 
THE VAGABOND 
 
 in the country in his camp, where they d be safe 
 so many are killed hy accident at home. My brave, 
 handsome boys, hang your clothes on a hickory-limb, 
 but don t go near the water, and drill a little more, 
 and look out not to get corns on your feet, there s a 
 set of dears, to please your General, he says, and 
 rides back to Washington. He says it so prettily, 
 and he s such a peaceable little man, that you can t 
 help liking him. He can make a beautiful cake, 
 yes, sir, and he s so taken up with making curlycues 
 on the frosting that he s afraid to bake it. He ll 
 stand before the stove, saying, Shall I or sha n t I ? 
 Is it time, or isn t it ? She loves me, she loves me 
 not, till the oven s cold ; and then he ll conclude that 
 a chocolate cake d been better, anyway, and start over 
 again. His friends still compare the things he s going 
 to do with the things Napoleon did. As you say, 
 Billy, have a good look at a thing before you get 
 scared about it; but the General shuts his eyes and 
 calls for reinforcements. If he had a million men 
 he d take it for granted that the Johnnies had a 
 million and a half. Oh, I never expect to see the 
 eternal hills of California again. I m going to stay 
 in the army and die of old age." 
 
 "Criticising superiors," said Jimmy. 
 
 "You think it: I say it," Tim rejoined. "And the 
 company?" the Vagabond asked. "The company?" 
 
 Tim was most soberly exact in details one moment 
 and quite the contrary the next (when his eyes 
 twinkled) in a long recital, which was eventually in 
 terrupted by the arrival of Mrs. "Williams and the 
 Colonel, whose regiment was now in camp. Felicia 
 did not wait for her nephew to make the overtures 
 
THE .VAGABOND 
 
 this time; she threw her arms around his neck and 
 kissed him fondly. 
 
 "What a handsome pair you make!" the Vaga 
 bond said. "I m proud of you. That s better, uncle, 
 that eagle. That s what you ought to have on your 
 shoulder." 
 
 "Don t talk about us!" cried Felicia. "Talk 
 about yourself ! To think that you should have been 
 lying at the point of death and I shouldn t have the 
 privilege of nursing you ! It seems as if I d never 
 done anything for you from the first when you 
 wouldn t live with me. Oh, it wasn t because I 
 didn t try. I dropped everything and hastened to 
 Arlington the minute I heard of it. General Huested 
 wouldn t listen to my going. I went to the President 
 and thought I d get a permit over the General s head. 
 Do you know that Abraham Lincoln has more than a 
 backbone ? He can be real contrary. 
 
 " We need you here, he said, in that soft, honest 
 way of his, without putting it on thick, as most 
 politicians do, so it doesn t count with anybody that 
 can see through a sieve. Maybe those two ladies 
 wouldn t be quite so hospitable if they had two Fed 
 erals in their house, and one of them neither sick nor 
 wounded and come without an invitation. 
 
 "He does have a wonderful way, that big man of 
 yours, Billy, of calming you down with a word or 
 leaving you with nothing to do but sputter. And 
 sputter I did and came away. And sputter I have, 
 and waited for you and worried about you. Now 
 that you are back, I m perfectly happy. And here I 
 am, telling you to talk about yourself" Felicia had 
 gained much vivacity, charm, and youthfulness of 
 
 366 
 
THE VAGABOND 
 
 late "and then talking about myself, without giv^ 
 ing you a chance to say a word. Were those two 
 ladies very kind to you ?" 
 
 "Very." 
 
 "Had they lots of slaves f " 
 
 "Very many." 
 
 "And were they kind to them V 9 
 
 "Very." 
 
 "Soldiering does make men so monosyllabic!" 
 She was not disappointed to hear that the slaves were 
 well treated; no but when one goes to war for a 
 great principle, one likes to have facts support it. 
 
 "They are kind because they are kind people. It 
 all depends on who the slaves master is." 
 
 "And that is the worst of the system," she re 
 torted. "It palliates it obscures!" 
 
 "Er-er," observed the Judge, who was too happy 
 these days to care for arguments. "Was the young 
 woman pretty?" 
 
 Pretty ? The Vagabond had never thought of 
 Volilla in that light. Pretty? The word was too 
 small for her. 
 
 "Fine-looking, yes," he said. 
 
 "Ha! So?" The Judge nudged his wife. "You 
 know what happened to my nurse and myself, eh? 
 Oh, it s my turn to badger you now, Billy 1" 
 
 "Your nurse was a Federal," the Vagabond re 
 plied. 
 
 "Good!" said Felicia. "I like to hear you say 
 that." 
 
 The Judge had no idea how near he had come to 
 the quick. Since Father Bob s death, the secret was 
 shared only with that iron-bound, double-locked re- 
 
 367 
 
THE VAGABOND 
 
 pository, the General. When the Colonel and Mrs. 
 Williams had gone, the Vagabond sank back on his 
 cot and fell into the delicious sleep of extreme phys 
 ical fatigue and of the hazy consciousness of sud 
 den great happiness yet to be fully understood and 
 appreciated. Awakening shortly after dusk, with 
 strength refreshed and mind clear, every event of 
 the previous day ranged itself in sharp outline in 
 seemingly normal relation to the others. How could 
 he have so befooled himself in making a wish the 
 father to a thought ! Another woman s refusal 
 might mean acceptance, but not hers, not hers. Yet 
 why had she ridden so far with him ? Because of 
 her anger with him for whipping Southbridge ? To 
 see him safely off her estate, perhaps. Why should 
 she have come to him after the fight at all ? Instead, 
 why shouldn t she have gone to Southbridge with 
 sympathy for his misfortune ? Ah, that was easily 
 explained in the light of his ideals of her. She had 
 seen her champion attack a sick man, whose health 
 had been in her keeping, and she went not to the one 
 who rode away but to the one who was too weak to 
 leave the field. She had blamed herself for thought 
 lessness and gone to fill the canteen, and, not finding 
 it in her heart to ask him back to the house, she had 
 escorted him at the same time that she could not re 
 sist expressing her indignation because he had won 
 always won. 
 
 Pity ! A proud nature groping for an explanation 
 comes slowly to that. His love for her had led 
 to his wound; to the charge against him; to the 
 fight with Southbridge. She would not be like 
 herself, like what he wished her to be, unless 
 
 368 
 
THE VAGABOND 
 
 she felt some responsibility and a desire to save him 
 from the consequences of his sentimental folly. Pity 
 and a sense of self -blame had sent her to the Union 
 lines for a doctor, saved him from being made a Con 
 federate prisoner, and nursed him without preju 
 dice. Pity and self-blame and enmity, pulling her 
 this way and that, accounted for all. They spoke 
 when she said, "I don t want you to win, and I don t 
 want to break your heart." Yet his last glimpse 
 of her, with the inexplicable force of inborn su 
 perstition outweighing reason, crowding into his 
 thoughts unbidden, scorned his logic. A glance can 
 carry a heart s message as quickly and as truly as a 
 diamond flashes out of the darkness. Could a dia 
 mond of such lustre be made of paste ? Could that 
 smile stand for only a kindly farewell to a guest ? He 
 did not think so ; he did not dare, in face of his fears, to 
 think otherwise. 
 
 Your man of Yes and !N"o cannot stand long be 
 tween the fires of doubt; he is bound to charge one 
 way or the other. Why had he not spoken again 
 while she rode with him that morning? Had she 
 wished it ? Had she expected it ? He would pour 
 out his love again; he would force his speech with 
 the abandon that his heart commanded and her dif 
 fidence might demand ere she consented. This time 
 he sought the General s permission for his journey. 
 The General b-r-red and drummed. As he promised 
 not to ask again, yes "on a scout, of course." 
 
 "When a man loves a woman wholly and cleanly 
 and mightily," he thought the next morning, as he 
 followed the road that had no turnings for him, "it 
 is the greatest thing of his life a thing so frail that 
 
 360 
 
THE VAGABOND 
 
 it is like a bubble, so solid and gleaming that it is 
 like gold. Then the world s business must wait, then 
 his heart must be master. Climbing mountains and 
 finding mines and leading charges are only joyful 
 sacrifices on that altar. If you would be strong, it is 
 for her admiration. You do not mind whether the 
 crowd speaks in cheers or hisses so their echo is 
 praise from her lips." 
 
 His arrival was timed to her morning ride, which 
 was later now that the weather was cool ; and he had 
 been waiting under the trees for some time when 
 Folly was brought to the curb. As Volilla ap 
 peared in the doorway he pledged himself again, as 
 he had in each passing moment, not to be tongue-tied 
 by a no ! His gentleness that hitherto had kept him 
 from even the semblance of persecuting her with his 
 love was submerged in the feverish mingling of hopes 
 and fears. In the serene cheerfulness that had won 
 him the privilege of telling his story, he rode forward 
 to meet her on the drive. Her start of surprise this 
 time had the edge of defiance. He had thought of 
 the smile of her parting until he fancied that as he 
 had left her so he should find her, thus to begin his 
 courtship again. Even her adorable hair seemed a 
 part of a statue s cold outline ; not a single strand was 
 free. All self-possession and composure, she stared 
 at him as if he were an offender without the pale of 
 excuse. He was speechless. 
 
 "Unless professionally, with their troops, I advise 
 Union officers not to pay any calls till the war is 
 over. Come, Folly!" 
 
 "Magnificent !" he thought, as she rode away. "I 
 I didn t mean to play the brute or ingrate/ were 
 
 370 
 
THE VAGABOND 
 
 his first words, spoken in a half -whisper and unheard 
 by her. After she had passed out of sight, riding 
 southward, he still looked at the space between the 
 trees where he had last seen her. When finally, and 
 it seemed to require all his strength to draw the rein, 
 he turned Breaker s head, he caught sight of Marcus 
 Aurelius coming toward him. Marcus had not ob 
 served mankind at home and abroad to no avail. He 
 understood the situation. 
 
 "I hope yo se bettah, sah," he managed to say. 
 
 "Yes, quite well, and I want to leave a note for 
 Miss Lanley." 
 
 The idea had come to him as he spoke ; and he took 
 out his little sketch-book. On the other side of a sheet 
 which had a picture of Folly which he had made dur 
 ing his convalescence he wrote : 
 
 "I shall love you for all time. I shall hope. I 
 shall wait. I shall come when the war is over." 
 
 Passing out of the yard, he saw Volilla in the dis 
 tance in the lane where his story had been told, and 
 he saw Southbridge coming across the fields to join 
 her. 
 
PART III 
 
 XL 
 
 THE LONG WAIT 
 
 After all, there are only two philosophies : Stoop- 
 shouldered pessimism and erect, sky-gazing op 
 timism. If pessimism has an illusion, prompt reac 
 tion makes it ashamed of a fall from grace; if 
 trouble assaults optimism, for the sake of self-en 
 couragement it adds another story to castles in the 
 air. Pessimism, when it does not run away, can only 
 hold on to what it possesses. Optimism will charge 
 and charge again till it wins the goal, or, failing it, 
 finds joy in its scars, and cheers on others who enter 
 the lists. In its grandest moments it can call death 
 a sweet sleep. And the Vagabond, before he had 
 reached the Union lines on his return from Lanley- 
 ton, had fallen back on his boyish reasoning that a 
 thing would never come true unless you believed 
 "hard" that it would. 
 
 In all the days dragging into months and in all 
 the months dragging by slow accumulation into 
 years until March of 65, no one except himself knew 
 what he carried in his heart; how it had given zest 
 to his blows, because he tried to find strength in the 
 
 373 
 
THE VAGABOND 
 
 smile of one farewell rather than weakness in the 
 scorn of another. 
 
 Hope ran high with each new experiment in 
 generals and each new campaign, to end in waiting 
 again after all the might of the North had thrown 
 itself against the Confederacy in vain. The war had 
 become an institution. Hundreds of thousands of 
 citizens had become a great organization, with a 
 regular s training and volunteers hearts, beating 
 time to the tune of death, and embalming-shops were 
 as thick in the streets of Washington as booths at a 
 fair. In the North, skirmishes were a matter-of-fact 
 subject of comment, like the market prices; great 
 battles brought grief to hearts of relatives and 
 friends of the dead and relief to relatives of the living, 
 and business went on again and the national debt grew 
 and Lincolnian politics smote coppery heads when they 
 arose; while in the South, man, woman, and child 
 felt in every daily association the paucity of food and 
 clothes without thought of suing for peace. 
 
 On the Fredericksburg campaign the Vagabond 
 had again ridden along the road which held his most 
 cherished memories. When he came to the knoll 
 from which he had expected to see the white cupola he 
 saw instead a column of smoke. Though they pressed 
 forward with all haste, the troop did not arrive until 
 the roof of Lanleyton had fallen; but they had the 
 satisfaction of capturing the incendiary. For a mo 
 ment the men thought that their leader would 
 strangle him where he stood. 
 
 "Take charge of the prisoner and keep him with 
 us, Jimmy," was the instruction, finally. 
 
 374 
 
THE VAGABOND 
 
 Three days later, the Vagabonds, dismounted, lay 
 hugging the fragment of a stone wall; bullets dipping 
 from the heights whistled over their heads and tossed 
 up the dust at their feet, which were drawn close to 
 their bodies; charges of canister struck their scant 
 breastworks with a crash or passed over with the roar 
 of a hurricane through a frozen rigging; and the 
 level of the continual musketry fire was broken by 
 the explosion of shells as the noise of city traffic is 
 broken by the clangor of an ambulance s gong. 
 With the missiles of death as thick in the rear as in 
 front, the troops must wait for darkness before they 
 could leave the scene of a battle already lost. 
 
 Jimmy Pool had obeyed commands with a literal- 
 ness that had not been authorized. His cold gray 
 eyes and his thin-lipped mouth had become a haunt 
 ing vision to the prisoner. At his side as he knelt 
 back of the line was a cringing, shivering thing in 
 human form who alternately put his hand to his eyes 
 to hide the sight of blood and to his ears to keep out 
 the terrible sounds. If he tried to seek the protection 
 of Jimmy s body, Jimmy moved to one side; if he 
 tried to crawl among the men, Jimmy pulled him 
 back to the same position of danger as himself. 
 
 "It is a beautiful day, elsewhere," remarked 
 Jimmy. 
 
 The charge of a shrapnel bursting near blew the 
 sulphurous smoke into their nostrils. 
 
 "I can t I can t stay here," Aikens gasped. He 
 started tremblingly to rise, as if he would run. 
 
 "I wouldn t undertake to retreat now, myself. It 
 is jumping off the precipice sure death." 
 
 "And death to stay death death! Why did I 
 375 
 
THE VAGABOOT) 
 
 burn that house? Why did I forge that note? It s 
 the devil born in me envy of power and love of 
 money. I can see that girl, Belle I can see Mr. 
 Lanley and I can see her, Miss Lanley, when he was 
 going to shoot me I can hear her say: Don t do mur 
 der! Don t! He s not worth it! and I hated her 
 for that and I was doing well in the North I was 
 quite a hero, there and I had plans but when a 
 man faced me down I could not forget him, and I 
 had to strike back in my way. Oh, Lieutenant, don t 
 look at me with those terrible eyes of yours !" 
 
 "Jimmy, I am afraid you are going too far," said 
 the Vagabond. "Come, Aikens, there s poor Edson. 
 "We will lift him to one side and you take his rifle. 
 If you use it half as well as he did, I will forgive 
 you. Come, once you are firing, you won t feel it so 
 much!" 
 
 "I I I couldn t!" Aikens gasped. One had only 
 to look at his livid face to understand that he spoke 
 the truth. 
 
 "Then take his intrenching tool and dig yourself 
 a hole. That will protect you." 
 
 "Oh thank you I " He made an effort to 
 reach the spade, which hung in the dead man s belt, 
 but hugged the earth again when a bullet passed near 
 him. "I I can t!" 
 
 "Then I ll dig it for you," said the Vagabond, and 
 started to do so. "I can t bear to see anyone suffer 
 ing as you are. The fear is inborn. I know you can 
 not help it." 
 
 "By trying to avoid death you are calling it," 
 Jimmy observed. 
 
 There was a moment s deceitful lull in the firing, 
 376 
 
THE VAGABOND 
 
 significant of a heavier fusillade to come. Looking 
 behind him, Aikens, for the first time, saw not a 
 single one of the little fountains of dust which the 
 bullets threw up in seeming vexation at having missed 
 their marks. A wild impulse and a wilder hope sud 
 denly gave his limbs strength, and he ran. Before he 
 had gone ten yards he fell with a wound in the leg. 
 
 "He mustn t stay there!" the Vagabond cried, and 
 not only he but Jimmy Pool sprang toward him. 
 They had scarcely started when a shell burst fairly 
 over his head, and the life and the blood went out 
 of his body like the water out of a squeezed sponge. 
 
 Returning from that field of needless butchery, 
 which never disturbed the nerves of a fat-witted 
 commander, in sight of the ashes of Lanleyton, 
 wet by the rains which the thunders of battle had 
 drawn, the Vagabond wondered if its mistress could 
 ever love a man who had worn the Blue. "I shall 
 hope! I shall wait!" Then, as he rested under the 
 trees, picturing just how the old place had looked, he 
 suddenly passed into the fever of an inspiration. 
 
 So long engaged in destruction, at last he was to 
 do something more to his taste he was to build. 
 Seizing the first opportunity for leave, he consulted 
 architects and contractors, and instead of the promo 
 tion which again had been offered him, he secured 
 official complicity and even a guard for his project as 
 soon as the final campaign of the war was begun and 
 Lanleyton was a point safely in Federal territory and 
 lying well out of the army s track. He had an ally 
 in the wife of one of the new brigadiers. Here was 
 work in keeping with Felicia s part, which, in her 
 
 377 
 
THE VAGABOND 
 
 own words, was to "help." Of Yolilla lie had heard 
 only what the questioning of prisoners could glean. 
 She was still alive, sometimes in Lynchburg, some 
 times in Richmond, nursing the sick, encouraging the 
 strong. 
 
 When Grant and Sheridan came out of his West 
 out of his land of great plains, great mountains, 
 and great rivers he was thankful for his own as 
 well as for his country s sate. "On this line all sum 
 mer I" What solace that to a weary President and 
 that weary land that had supported him in loyal ex 
 penditure of lives and funds and had seen their 
 forces sweep back and forth like the changing of the 
 tides. Grant would attack and attack and attack and 
 not fall back and not fall lack! For the first time 
 that magnificent soldiery had a leader worthy of it, 
 who made a battering-ram of its courage instead of 
 a theatrical display. At last the thinking privates, 
 with whom initiative was inborn, knew that for 
 every death there would be a gain that would not 
 be forfeited. From that day, as he tells us in his 
 memoirs, when as a colonel of volunteers the square- 
 jawed man, with many misgivings, had ridden over a 
 hill to attack a Confederate regiment and found that 
 the regiment had gone, he concluded to leave the 
 worrying to the other side; to go ahead when in 
 doubt. If his men were tired or untrained, so were 
 the enemy s; and the turning-point of fortune would 
 be the aggressor s. Such his simple characteristic, 
 which no rumors, no temporary disaster, no advice 
 could change; such the sum of the great man s virtue. 
 
 Sheridan brought to an army three years under 
 arms the new reasoning that if men on horseback 
 
 378 
 
THE VAGABOND 
 
 were to fight on foot with infantry, why have 
 mounted men at all ? Thenceforth, the cavalry was 
 not to lie in intrenchments or to patrol the rear, not 
 to get scared before it had a good look at a thing, but 
 to court danger as if danger were its sweetheart. It 
 was no park saddle work, that under the little Irish 
 man who strung dead men and dead horses about the 
 State of Virginia to end the war instead of allowing 
 them to die in camp to prolong it. 
 
 The Vagabonds had played their part heroically, 
 whether at the Yellow Tavern, when the Northern 
 cavalry cleared its escutcheon of Stuart s rebukes, or 
 in the exacting vigils of the scout. They had ridden 
 in all weathers, ridden until they were so many nod 
 ding automatons napping in their saddles; until 
 their muscles were as stiff as sole leather; and they 
 had been happy in their hardships, as all true sol 
 diers are when they are gaining ground and not 
 treading air. Of the hundred who started gayly from 
 Belmore, thirty were left; while kind fortune had 
 preserved their three leaders to lend their personal 
 example to consummate skill and spirit of corps. 
 The Vagabond had still another scar; Tim Booker 
 had four; and wiry Jimmy Pool had lost buttons and 
 had his hair singed without having his flesh touched 
 beyond that white welt across his cheek which a Con 
 federate sabre had dealt at the cost of its owner s life. 
 
 "You ve been hit often enough, little Boy Blue," 
 said Tim. "If you ll get a microscope and look your 
 self over you ll find you re like a pepper-box cover. 
 Yes, you ve been shot through and through with solid 
 shot, shrapnel and canister; but you re so thin you 
 never noticed it." 
 
 379 
 
THE VAGABOND 
 
 If there was an ounce of surplus tissue in the 
 troop it had no outward semblance. Your pink- 
 skinned athletes, too, had gone to the wall along with 
 the feather-bed boys, the men of gristle, rubber, and 
 endurance surviving, even as the mustang outwears 
 the sleek carriage-horse. Timothy s own bunching 
 muscles of California days had given way to hard 
 ened sinews. Having in that hopefully beginning, 
 disastrously ending, Peninsula campaign refused to 
 trim his beard until the Union army was in Rich 
 mond, it had reached downward until it was in dan 
 ger of being entangled with his horse s mane. But 
 Tim was steadfast ; he would not break his word. On 
 the famous ride around the Confederate army, which 
 brought them in sight of the enemy s capital, after 
 his whiskers got caught in a branch of a tree he went 
 to Jimmy with a pair of scissors and said: 
 
 "If you ll just do a man s duty to man while I 
 sleep, I guess I ll count this as good as entering Rich 
 mond." 
 
 Jimmy complying most literally, Tim protested 
 that he did not mean so much ; and Jimmy drawled : 
 
 "You re asleep, Timothy; mind your conscience," 
 and clipped his friend to the flesh. 
 
 In the morning, for want of a mirror, Tim could 
 not tell how he looked, only how he felt ; and he felt 
 much ashamed of Jimmy and like a sheep after the 
 spring shearing, he said. 
 
 Good-nature was never lacking in that band. Its 
 captain s smile was better than drums or battle-flags. 
 He had the proper spirit, to begin with, even had he 
 not taken a note out of Father Bob s book, in which 
 it was written that uphill was easier for simply call- 
 
 380 
 
THE VAGABOND 
 
 ing it downhill. The rain washed off the dust, and 
 the broiling sun kept the road dry ; the mud was al 
 ways as deep on the Confederate side as on the 
 Union. When they had to eat their "bacon raw, he 
 reminded his brave fellows that it wasn t any harder 
 on the pig; when they rested their weary bones on 
 the damp earth, he reminded them that the infantry 
 didn t even have saddles for pillows. However down 
 hearted they were, he could stretch lengthening 
 faces laterally as he rode along the line with a fa 
 miliar toss of his head and a word of cheer. 
 
 The organization was not so much a company as 
 a family, such was the superior quality of the men 
 themselves, such their affection for their commander, 
 who made discipline easy, though sharp, because it 
 was uniform. His distinction as a troop-leader had 
 given him many opportunities, which, if they were 
 not as good as climbing mountains, were after his 
 own heart, and made him more valuable in his chosen 
 field of scout and ready unit of small numbers than 
 if he had been a general. His greatest drawback in 
 the eyes of his superiors was a tendency to take risks 
 too lightly ; for at times he would forget all else ex 
 cept the relaxation from weary monotony and his 
 heart s burden which the preoccupation of danger 
 brought. But this had its advantage. They had 
 grown so accustomed to his successes, which he al 
 ways contemptuously called "tricking policemen," 
 that they trusted to his genius to accomplish things 
 that but for him would not have been undertaken. 
 
 <f lf you keep him idle too long," General Huested 
 told General Sheridan, "you may find him gone to 
 !N"ew Orleans on his own account. He feeds on dif- 
 
 381 
 
THE VAGABOND 
 
 ficulties. Only, for his sake and mine, don t let 
 have too many delicacies of that kind." 
 
 So it was that we find him one of the scouting 
 points of Sheridan s column on the return from the 
 back-breaking and glorious campaign in the Shen- 
 andoah and advancing in the direction of Lynch- 
 burg. Mud-splashed, gaunt, In the teeth of a March 
 wind, he rode well ahead of his command over the 
 mire called a pike, on the back of the faithful 
 Breaker, who, at the mature age of seven, was the 
 hardiest veteran of them all. At a turn in the road 
 he saw a horse standing in the street opposite one of 
 the four or five buildings responsible for the dot on 
 the map called a C. H. There was something fa 
 miliar about him, and the man that held him seemed 
 to be one that he had seen. He was little nearer, he 
 had in no way defined the association, when a woman 
 came out of the door with a lightness and a facility 
 and haste evident even at a distance and sprang into 
 the saddle, her steed, with a perfect understanding 
 of her desire, starting at the gallop instantly he felt 
 her in place, the whole making a picture of action 
 and grace sufficient to have made the weariest of cav 
 alry-men raise his eyebrows in admiration. Once her 
 figure was clear against the dun color of the road and 
 earth, its haunting familiarity took the form of that 
 one which had outdistanced him in the race after his 
 story was told. The blood sang in his temples. He 
 forgot his promise to himself not to see her again till 
 the war was over, and put Breaker to the run. 
 
 382 
 
XII 
 
 A SERVANT OF THE LANLEYS 
 
 But he drew rein before he had gone a dozen rods. 
 His experience of Folly s superior speed might well 
 have changed his mind ; if the fact that he was a re 
 sponsible person with a definite mission to perform 
 had not There could have been no keener expression 
 of the satire of civil war than the nature of this one 
 glimpse in three years of the girl he loved. Why 
 was she here ? Where was she going ? The deserted 
 square, with no living figure now in sight, was the 
 only reply; and he looked away from it at his 
 horse s ears absently, until he was reminded that he 
 Was the eyes of the army, and glancing up saw the 
 black face of Marcus Aurelius in the doorway from 
 which Yolilla had mounted her horse. As he ap 
 proached, Marcus a ragged, hatless Marcus, who 
 could not lose his grand manner putting his finger 
 to his white locks in a salute of equivocal recognition 
 and screwing his face into a contortion of pride and 
 sarcasm, mumbled : 
 
 "Ef yo come t call on Missy Yo yo s late. She 
 done gone on." 
 
 The Vagabond s desire to explore the old servant s 
 memory for every fugitive fact about his mistress 
 became all-compelling. Calling to his command to 
 proceed and he would overtake them, he fairly 
 
 383 
 
THE VAGABOND 
 
 pushed Marcus into the deserted house, closing the 
 door behind them. 
 
 "Now tell me! Tell me where has Miss Lanley 
 been all this time and what has she been doing?" 
 
 "Yo mus t ink I se got a long tongue an a week 
 o time," the old man replied. Assuming the air of 
 a stranger, he went on: "I don know what bizness 
 my missis s is ob any Yankee sowger." 
 
 "I m not any Yankee soldier! Don t try to put 
 on airs with me ; Marcus ! Have you forgotten the 
 sick man you helped up the stairs on a cloud just as 
 easy? Have you forgotten " 
 
 " Fo de Lawd ! I nuver, nuver forgit de mos es 
 scrumptious Yankee I uver see. No, seh! Pears 
 like I forgit nuttin when I ought t forgit ev yt ing. 
 When I t inks what I se been th oo, me a gent man s 
 sarvent, me a Lanley, seh, wid my white hyars, I sez, 
 Marcus, yo jes go lay down an die an be quick 
 bout it. Yo se over-lived yo time by fo years, yo 
 ole fool, an do know nuff to know yo oughter be 
 dead. Me ! Me mekin all dis talk bout my good- 
 f ur-nuttin se f, seh ! It ain me, seh, it s Missy Yo. 
 When I t ink o what she been th oo, I clar t yo , seh, 
 I done b lieve dat a Yankee done push Marse Lawd 
 off de golden throne, an he s runnin t ings t suit 
 hisse f. 
 
 "Maybe yo t ink yo know Missy Yo. Marse 
 Richard he know her ; he al ays know her. He say 
 dyah s some n way down deep in Missy Yo dat jes 
 mout come t de top an mout nuver. Yo know 
 Marse Richard he s one o dem talkin men dat s a 
 t inkin man, too. Fo de house bu n down, Missy 
 Yo wuz al ays tellin how de front warn no place 
 
 384 
 
THE VAGABOND 
 
 fur a ooman. No, seh, she sez, a ooman bettah stay 
 home an ten de blacks plantin an hoein an har- 
 vestin an jes be cheerful to give de men hyart. ~No 
 trousahs fur her; no, seh! But yo nuver knows 
 what yo ll do tell de house tek a fire. Dem dat sez 
 dey ll be cooles frows de mirrors out o de window 
 an kyars a pillow downstairs; an dem dat wuz on- 
 sahtain seems ez ef dey could smell whar de oldes 
 silvah an pictures wuz, an dey s jes ez cahm ez a 
 cup o tea. When we wuz way t Missy Bulwer s, an 
 done hyah de house bu n, Missy Yo she jes lookin 
 at de wall fur a long time fo she speak. Den she 
 say : I se no home, no f athah, no mothah, no gran - 
 f athah ; on y de cause an Folly ! I ll do all a ooman 
 kin. An Gord knows she has, she an he hawse. 
 Ef dyah s a brave man dat needs nussin , she s dyah. 
 An me, seh! Gord he p me, I se been at he heels, 
 me a-servin an Marse Soufbridge a-co tin ; she 
 a-ridin Folly an me a-ridin a mule er a-walkin er 
 a-beggin a ride in a wagin. What fur I kyah so I 
 kin look arfter her ? What become o her ef I die ? 
 Dat s all dat keeps me livin . What yo t ink she 
 wants t do ? Yes, seh, dat lady ez gentle ez a lady 
 could be ! She wan t tu n spy ! Yes, seh, de good 
 Lawd he p us ! I tell her ef she do I follow her. I 
 tell her ef she stay I " 
 
 Marcus Aurelius stopped in terror. He recalled 
 that he was not talking to a Confederate. 
 
 "You went as a spy yourself ?" the Vagabond sug 
 gested. 
 
 " Fo Gord, I did!" the old man confessed, 
 bravely. "An hang me ef yo wants t ! Dat s an 
 easy way out o my trubLlcs ! Yes, seh, I tell her 
 
THE VAGABOND 
 
 dat ef she go I go too, an quick s we wuz in de Yan 
 kee lines I d go t de Yankee Gin ral an I say : Won 
 yo please put dis lady in a comf ble prison wliar 
 she ll do no ha m? She s out o he head t do sech 
 t ings, cause she s a Lanley. An she give in an I 
 went in he place. Hang me, seh! I se been up an* 
 down yo lines, a-cringin , suffer in ole nigger, mum- 
 blin t ings t mek yo Yankees laugh while I coun 
 yo rigimints. Please Gord, dis nigger ain no in- 
 grate. He ain fightin ag in de fo ks dat bringed 
 him out o savag ry into respectumbility. He ain 
 shamed ! Hang me !" 
 
 "I can t accommodate you there, Marcus. I 
 sha n t even arrest you. The war s nearly over." 
 
 "Over ! over !" Marcus leered at the Vagabond 
 and laughed uproariously. "Yes, seh, dat war s been 
 over an over an over uver sence it b gun. An when- 
 uver it s over tee hee! Marse Robert (General 
 Lee) he jes wave he hand an mo sowgers come. It 
 wuz over at Gettysburg tee hee ! I see Marse Rob 
 ert when he come ridin back a-lookin like he bed 
 won al ays a-lookin like he hed won ! To de 
 Lawd, I sez, he come back jes cause he want to. 
 Over ! Not s long s we have Marse Robert a-lookin 
 so cahm no, seh !" 
 
 "Marcus !" the Vagabond cried, impetuously, 
 "did Miss Lanley ever speak of me ?" 
 
 "No, seh. She nuver speak o yo , an dat are wuz 
 jes what mek me spishun. Yo member dat piece o 
 paper yo gi me arfter she looked de t oughts out o 
 yo head an de wuds out o yo mouf dat day ? When 
 she read it she turn all a pinky an red an she read 
 ag in, an I could see dat paper all a-flutter in in he 
 
 380 
 
THE VAGABOND 
 
 hand, an she looked way kinder far off an proud, 
 an den she sez like she suddenly member me, Dat s 
 all, Marcus, an I lef her lone, seh, a-sayin t myse f 
 dat are Yankee sowger has a way he has a way." 
 
 He nodded obsequiously, the while his keen old 
 eyes saw that the Vagabond s face was flushed in its 
 turn and he ; too, had a far-away look. 
 
 "Arfter dat, she tek t wearin a locket round he 
 neck, an ole locket ob he gran-mammy s, an some 
 times I see her a-sittin all silent playin wid it in 
 her fingahs ez ef she wuz a-dreamin o t ings dat 
 mout be but mus nuver be, an ez ef dat locket hed 
 de whole story o dat are in it. When he house bu n 
 she grab dat locket ez ef it wuz a hot coal g inst her 
 breas I nuver see her in sech a temper; Marse 
 Robert hisse f would have quailed befo her an she 
 f rew dat locket ez fur into de bresh ez she could. I 
 pick it up, an I se keepin it tell maybe she speak 
 ob it ag in; dough I se jes reck nin she nuver will, 
 seh, cause ve y soon I heah she an Marse Souf- 
 bridge engaged fur sho . Dey ain married yet not 
 yet, please de Lawd. Anyhow, she put whatuver 
 wuz in dat locket out o he life furuver an uver. I 
 ain nuver opened it, no, seh. I reckon I tipple ole 
 marster s wine ; I reckon I like t know what s gwine 
 on s well ez any body-sarvent; but a op nin dat are 
 wuz too much like a-gwine into de young missis 
 room befo she call me. But once, when de mule 
 t ink he wan t kyar me on he heels stid o he back, 
 dat locket flew op n an I see a piece o paper wid 
 some little, fine man s writ in on it an I closed it 
 right up." 
 
 He drew forth the treasure from his pocket, a 
 387 
 
THE .VAGABOND 
 
 heart-shaped tiling of gold set with turquoise. The 
 Vagabond took it from his yielding fingers, and, 
 tempted by the suggestion that Marcus s information 
 carried, opened it and found, tightly folded, his note 
 his "I shall wait ! I shall hope 1" whose delicate 
 receptacle had risen and fallen on her breast with 
 thoughts of him and had been cast away for any 
 stranger to pick up. He folded the paper and re 
 placed it. 
 
 "I ll keep this ! I ll keep it !" he said, determinedly. 
 
 "Sell! Dat b longs t no Yankee sowger! Dat 
 b longs t de Lanleys !" 
 
 "I ll keep it," the Vagabond repeated. "I ve no 
 right except might, and might I cannot now resist. 
 You ll want to get back to the Confederate lines, I 
 suppose. How ll you manage it ?" 
 
 "A mule. I kin al ays fin a mule. Dat s whar 
 a nigger shines. White men hunt an hunt an* nuver 
 see a mule, an nigger go out whar dey been an 
 dyah s a mule ! Dat mule been a-waitin fur dat nig 
 ger all de time yes, seh. I ll fin a mule, seh, or 
 I ll jes wait hyah, seh, an de Confed rates will come 
 t me. Yo won tarry long; no, seh. Ole house- 
 bu nin Sheridan s gwine t be killed an buried right 
 hyah in Firginia mud an dat s too good fur him. 
 De good Lawd s sent dese rains t he p Marse Robert 
 Yes, seh, when de good Lawd see Marse Robert all 
 a-ridin so cahm, he s jes boun t he p Marse 
 Robert!" 
 
 The old servant s last words, still repeating them 
 selves in his ears after he had mounted, made the 
 Vagabond see the cavalry as the South must see 
 them j dado him see himself as she must see 
 
 388 
 
THE VAGABOND 
 
 Only that morning he had destroyed a grist-mill with 
 the same regret that the President felt in authorizing 
 such drastic measures to make war s grim reign the 
 shorter and peace the nearer. He had veritably 
 coaxed himself into the belief that the Potomac 
 would be as narrow as it was in the beginning, once 
 the conflict was over ; that when the sabre-blade was 
 draped in the laurel-branch the struggle would mean 
 no more to a Confederate girl and a Union officer 
 than the tiffs of courtship to the happy couple on the 
 bridal morn. Her own house was in ashes, burned 
 by Union hands. If she had heard of him at all dur 
 ing their separation it was as likely in connection 
 with some raid as in the more welcome task of battle. 
 The picture of her flight from him as a scourge had 
 replaced, for the thousandth time, the sweet one that 
 had been his ship of stars. Then the sound of shots 
 ahead made him forget all else, as he gave rein, ex 
 cept that he was a captain of horse on a scout. 
 
 38S 
 
XIH 
 
 A RECOGNITION 
 
 Long since used to tlie various situations of cav 
 alry warfare, he presumed that his men had devel 
 oped the enemy as they were sent to do, and were 
 already falling back in due course. At first Breaker s 
 struggling steps in the mud drowned the muffled 
 sound of a mass of hoofs. When he did hear it, there 
 was no mistaking that throbbing, rapid tread of the 
 gallop, however dim. His good fellows were charg 
 ing. The thrilling zest of conflict mounted to his 
 head, and his haste was imparted to his steed. He 
 hoped to see what it was all about at the turn of the 
 road ; but the wind blowing away from him, he had 
 no appreciation of how near he was to his company, 
 which suddenly sprang into view in tempestuous re 
 treat. He did not have time to stop, only to draw 
 Breaker to one side while the Federals swept past, be 
 spattering their leader with mud. 
 
 "Get back!" cried Tim Booker, who was in ad 
 vance. "We re leading these Johnnies into camp!" 
 
 Twenty yards behind, in bloodthirsty pursuit, 
 were three or four troops of Confederates, discharg 
 ing carbines and revolvers and shouting. ISText, the 
 Vagabond had a glimpse of Jimmy Pool at the rear 
 of his column. Before Tim s warning was fairly out 
 of his mouth he saw Jimmy s horse stumble and fall, 
 
 330 
 
THE VAGABOND 
 
 throwing its rider fairly into the path of five hun 
 dred hoofs which no power could arrest. He started 
 toward his lieutenant, thinking that with his body 
 and Breaker s he would split that havoc of soldiery 
 as a rock splits a current, and thus prevent Jimmy 
 from being trampled to death. But before Breaker 
 had his feet out of the slough into which they had 
 sunk, the foam from the front rank of the enemy s 
 horse was thrown into his face. 
 
 However, Jimmy Pool had not lost his wits; he 
 was languid in off-times only to insure agility for su 
 preme moments. Before he struck earth his danger 
 was clear to him. He sprang for the edge of the em 
 banked road as if sliding for second, and sabres 
 dipped toward him in vain, the while he rolled away 
 in the mire. There they were, these two Yankees, 
 just out of reach of that cataract of the enemy s horse 
 and no more. Undischarged cartridges were in 
 stantly sent after the Vagabond; but his shoulder- 
 straps were no more than a glint of braid to each 
 passing trooper, his materialization so sudden and 
 out of the programme that the call to shoot him from 
 the rest of a plunging saddle was as bootless as to 
 tell a man to reach out of the window of an express 
 train and catch the mail-bag at the station two hun 
 dred yards ahead. 
 
 He had no sooner comprehended Jimmy s imme 
 diate safety with a cry of delight than he realized 
 the danger of their being left with one horse if a 
 dozen Confederates should draw rein and return for 
 the goodly prize of a brace of Federal officers. The 
 whistling of the wildly aimed bullets fired at his own 
 head gave him the inspiration he needed. He had a 
 
 391 
 
THE .VAGABOND 
 
 steady position, and he ought to get his man, he 
 thought, as he drew his revolver and fired at the last 
 trooper in the line, who dropped out of his saddle. 
 Clinging to his reins, the shock of his dead weight 
 brought his horse to a stand-still. 
 
 "There s a mount for you, Jimmy!" the Vaga 
 bond called. 
 
 "I m damned if there is !" responded the Confed 
 erate, as he raised himself with an effort. He drove 
 his sabre in the sweating neck, and his faithful ally s 
 blood joined his own. "They ll come back and pick 
 you up," he added, faintly. 
 
 Both of the Federals were watching the column, 
 which went on in the enthusiasm of the charge with 
 no more idea of stopping, as yet, than a hound on the 
 scent of a fox stops for a rabbit. As they turned 
 toward the wounded man, the rain began to fall again. 
 
 "That s good," said the Confederate. "It ll swell 
 the river so you house-burners can t get across !" 
 
 He died, smiling triumphantly, his head resting 
 on the shoulder of his dead steed. The Vagabond 
 pressed his eyelids shut respectfully and admiringly. 
 
 "House-burners! It s the right term. That s 
 what we are," said the Vagabond, absently. 
 
 "We sha n t have the chance to burn any more 
 houses unless we get out of here pretty quick," 
 Jimmy added. "No horse can carry two across those 
 fields, and that s how we ll have to go. I can hoof 
 it; in fact, I d rather." For the first time he started 
 to rise, and, swaying, caught himself by putting his 
 hand on his Captain s shoulder. "Turned my foot, 
 I guess," he said. When he tried to touch it to the 
 ground, his face twitched with pain. "Nonsense!" 
 
 302 
 
THE VAGABOND 
 
 he exclaimed. "I must have used it to get out of 
 their way." He put it to the ground again, and re 
 strained a groan with set lips. 
 
 "Your ankle is sprained, and there is an end of 
 it," said the Vagabond. 
 
 "I guess it is, seeing that the danger isn t so im 
 minent as it was a minute ago," was the dry response. 
 
 Thereupon, the Vagabond picked up his slight 
 lieutenant bodily, and with all the gentleness pos 
 sible set him astride Breaker. 
 
 "He ll take you safe ashore. Come, there s no 
 time to lose" this last was spoken in view of a line 
 of infantry that appeared in the distance marching 
 from the South, evidently to support the cavalry 
 "and no protests. You said yourself that the horse 
 couldn t carry two. I ll have the easiest end of it 
 walking. All I ve got to do is to keep out of sight. 
 There s this blessing about the rain and mud, no 
 body but a fugitive will think of getting off the road 
 without an object. General Grant, if he has the 
 strength, could walk back to our lines in as great 
 safety as he could go along the works at Petersburg." 
 
 They passed over the highway, Breaker flounder 
 ing, with the steam rising from his rain-drenched 
 flanks. The Vagabond, picking his way behind 
 them, stopped when they came to the cover of a 
 scrubby patch of second growth, fringed by willows 
 that had grown over a rail-fence long since gone to 
 make camp-fires. 
 
 "Look here ! Aren t you coming ?" Jimmy called. 
 
 "No. I m going to have a look at the Confederate 
 infantry on the march to see if they like the rain and 
 mud as well as we do." 
 
 393 
 
THE VAGABOND 
 
 "What did you say about no time to lose? It s 
 not the General s intention to make a stand here. 
 The thing for us is to catch up with our forces." 
 
 "Orders, Lieutenant!" called the Vagabond. 
 
 "Yes, sir," was the response, with a stiff salute; 
 and your regular rode on, not once looking back. 
 
 The Vagabond shook the water off his cap and 
 waited for the approach of the infantry, a bedrizzled 
 line in ragged gray or ragged brown or ragged any 
 thing that would cover a soldier s nakedness. They 
 carried their rifles at whatever shift was easiest for 
 the shoulders of fifty beside those of eighteen, in the 
 gleaning of all the manhood that a people had left 
 to make the loss of a cause magnificent. For they 
 knew! they knew! They had known ever since At 
 lanta had fallen, and from impossibilities they had 
 drawn the charm of a bold front to despair. They 
 marched in step from sympathy rather than from 
 military formula, with swinging, slouching grace, 
 looking as if they were going to kill or be killed and 
 little caring which, so it was done in honor to their 
 sovereign State, their sovereign town, their sovereign 
 family, their sovereign selves, and a sovereign prin 
 ciple of disintegration which must eventually be its 
 own destruction. As they passed they gave heat to 
 their drenched bodies, they lessened the depth of the 
 clammy mud, with gibes, one of which was to the 
 effect that considering the outpour from the skies 
 anybody who went above, that afternoon, ought to be 
 grateful, for he would have a dry bed. 
 
 An unusually lanky man of a rear rank, like the 
 waggling tail of which his company was the body, 
 seesawed to the side of the road, more by impulse 
 
 394 
 
THE VAGABOND 
 
 than by prearrangement. Some of his comrades 
 called him a skunk, without qualifications; others 
 wondered how any one human being could find in 
 those times enough whiskey to drown his sorrows; 
 and still others dilated on the awful selfishness of the 
 man who would not pass his canteen when the very 
 earth around him was shaking with the chills of his 
 fellow-sufferers. In niggardly fear of having it 
 appropriated then and there, the culprit put the 
 rusty nozzle to his lips and drained the remainder of 
 that native product of corn so amazingly effective in 
 ratio to its quantity. Whereupon, he cried "Hoo 
 ray!" on principle, and lying down in the mud, with 
 big drops of rain trickling off the end of his nose, 
 remarked on the softness of the feather-ticks in this 
 hotel, though the roof did seem a little leaky. There 
 he lay, while more infantry and guns and still more 
 infantry went by ; and then, as far as one could see, 
 there was no sign of a human being. 
 
 The Vagabond pondered on how much the fellow 
 knew of things that interested Sheridan, and now he 
 approached, only to find him quite too full for utter 
 ance. Looking down the road he saw that some of 
 the infantry were already returning from their use 
 less sortie. This advancing patch on the ribbon of 
 mud brought him another idea, as irresistible as it 
 was dangerous. He picked the Confederate up and 
 carried him behind the bushes, his load becoming 
 animate enough to remark that it was pleasant to 
 ride in a spring-wagon after having marched so 
 much. Whipping off his own sopping uniform, by 
 dint of arduous care, which did not awaken the pa 
 tient to a sense of the transformation, he removed 
 
 395 
 
THE VAGABOND 
 
 the tattered garb of his accomplice, whose rifle he 
 threw across his own shoulder. Then he buckled on 
 his own sabre, which he would no more have left be 
 hind than a lady her jewel-case. Except for this tell 
 tale, as he walked into the road with his shoulders 
 thrown forward and otherwise simulating his new 
 character, he was a private of the Confederacy. But 
 first he made sure that he was not presenting him 
 self to the drunken man s own regiment. 
 
 There was no sign in the faces of the approaching 
 veterans of any ill feeling on account of the folly 
 which sent old soldiers on a fool s errand. They 
 had learned the great lesson that there are a hundred 
 march outs to one battle. They were making their 
 legs go, and not wasting energy in complaints. They 
 took the \ 7 agabond for a straggler, and began to pass 
 remarks about the poor infant s stomachache or his 
 headache or the length of his mamma s apron- 
 strings, when a sharp-eyed fellow, who looked and 
 thought before he spoke, recognizing the belt with 
 the brass plate stamped U. S. A. and the Union of 
 ficer s sabre, changed gibe into curiosity. The new 
 private was prepared for the question with a South 
 ern drawl: 
 
 "Yes. Knocked that Yankee clean out of his sad 
 dle. That s why I m here. Think it was worth 
 dropping out of ranks for, don t you ? Taste this !" 
 He offered the drunken man s canteen, which con 
 tained the contents of his own flask. "Pass it around 
 and take a, sip apiece." 
 
 "Yes, a sip!" echoed along the line of tongues as 
 dry as the road was wet in those days when the tee- 
 totale^s on either side were as rare as square meals. 
 
 396 
 
THE VAGABOND 
 
 It was amazing how few sips it took to find the bot 
 tom. Those who got none wet their lips with the 
 tips of their tongues, growled at luck, and accepted 
 the fortunes of war with becoming fatalism. An 
 old man, with the moth-patches already forming 
 around his eyes, stepped out of the ranks and tapped 
 the Vagabond on the shoulder with a shaking 
 forefinger. 
 
 "Comrade, there wasn t any coffee on that Yank ? 
 Coffee !" he repeated. "Roasted peas ! Roasted peas 
 and swill ! When you reach my age you can t stom 
 ach it. For one good drink of coffee I know men 
 that s deserted for that," and he fell back into the 
 steady, monotonous step with the check of the regret 
 ful negative. 
 
 As the Vagabond regarded him, he understood as 
 he had not before the admirable fortitude of a peo 
 ple who would rob the cradle and the grave in the 
 name of their pride. The South was not a "quitter." 
 
 "Coffee ! Ma s coffee ! I kin member what it was 
 fo the war/ drawled a boy of seventeen. "Coffee !" 
 
 "Didn t you get his saddle or anything ? Jest his 
 sabre?" asked another. 
 
 "Didn t he have a watch ? Wasn t his boots bet 
 ter n yours ?" from an avaricious fellow, who had 
 learned to make the most of war s personal opportu 
 nities. 
 
 Ready invention is often more serviceable than 
 truth when the truth is awkward, and ready inven 
 tion the Vagabond possessed fruitfully, if not as ex 
 pansively as Timothy Booker. 
 
 "Pipped him off his horse and his horse ran away 
 with the saddle. There s his watch," he drew his 
 
 397 
 
THE VAGABOND 
 
 own from his pocket, "and there s his boots/ with 
 a glance toward his feet. 
 
 "He didn t have any underclothes on ? Nawthin* 
 to keep old hones warm ?" asked the old man. 
 
 The Vagabond showed his own garment of wool. 
 
 "Brandy and wool! They ain t got no blockade 
 over there! Brandy and wool! How can we fight 
 that? Eight it we will! Fight it we will, though 
 we live on roots and grubs and fleas! Alabama s 
 still a sovereign State still a sovereign State, 
 by God ! That s what I always say to chirk me up 
 when I feel just as if I d walk over to the Yanks and 
 sell my soul for a full belly !" 
 
 The Vagabond launched into an elaborate tale of 
 how he had taken his prisoner, and when his new 
 found companions were in good humor he turned to 
 the object of his disguise. He reckoned that as soon 
 as spring came and the boys on leave got back to their 
 regiments, the Confederates would drive the Fed 
 erals back to Washington. He reckoned that there 
 must be forty thousand men in Lynchburg. A chorus 
 wanted to know who had been coddling him with that 
 yarn. Their consensus of opinion of five thousand 
 was the information he wanted. His optimism in 
 nowise dimmed, he said he had heard that there were 
 fifty guns in Lynchburg. 
 
 "Fifty!" came a guffawing answer, "fifty! 
 There s fifteen old-timers. Uncle Robert s got all 
 the good ones with him. Because you ve taken a 
 prisoner you seem to think that we re as strong as we 
 was at Gettysburg. When you get over the effects 
 of that Yank s brandy you ll divide by four, sonny." 
 
 "If you fellows keep on you ll make me desert," 
 398 
 
THE VAGABOND 
 
 the Vagabond concluded. "I ll just drop out and 
 wait for my company. Don t want to get separated 
 from them. They re going to camp in the White 
 House grounds to-night." After the laughter had 
 subsided he added: "A little imagination helps a 
 man to keep up his spirits;" and they called back 
 their good wishes over their shoulders to the wag who 
 had enlivened the dull ordeal of their shivering, be 
 draggled march, while he lifted his remnant of a hat 
 in profound dignity and responded, with the wind- 
 driven drops pattering on his face, that if there was 
 anything in the world he hated it was a drought like 
 that which then prevailed in Virginia. 
 
 Leaning on his rifle, he settled himself to wait 
 long enough to give verisimilitude to his excuse, 
 when he intended to hasten back to his drunken alter 
 ego. Looking away from the direction of its com 
 ing, he was not aware until he heard its steps of 
 the approach of a horse. He turned to see Volilla 
 coming toward him not fifty yards away. In this 
 crisis he thought first of stepping back a few feet and 
 facing about. Even that was unnecessary, he told 
 himself. If he merely hung his head she would not 
 mistake him for any other than a ragged foot-soldier 
 who had dropped out of the ranks to rest. 
 
 But if she should recognize him! If she should 
 recognize him in the garb of a spy, what would she 
 say and do? How had that face of his dreams 
 changed in four years? Folly, being as intent on 
 picking his way in the least muddy places as if he 
 wore a skirt and slippers, now took the Vagabond s 
 side of the road. The Vagabond realized the risk of 
 discovery to himself and the embarrassment of it to 
 
 399 
 
THE VAGABOND 
 
 her; but desire to see her shattering all discretion, he 
 lifted his cap and looked straight at her. 
 
 "You!" she said, in a stifled cry. 
 
 That old word she had used so often when cir 
 cumstances brought them abruptly together. "You !" 
 He liked her to say that. It singled him out from 
 the rest of the world in her comprehension. It was 
 a distinction that he welcomed with his smile of 
 jaunty confidence, which made all dangers reflected 
 as happiness in the mirror of her nearness. Each 
 line from eyebrow to chin he lingered on in lov 
 ing comparison with that of four years ago. She 
 was grown older and more mature; the tan of ex 
 posure was on her cheek; her expression had been 
 chastened into a greater nobility by the sufferings of 
 her people ; and, withal, time had revealed the inner 
 grandeur of her nature, even as Richard Bulwer had 
 prophesied. It was as natural for him to be silent 
 in her presence as for a subject before his throne. 
 
 a You again !" She dwelt on the second word with 
 clinging familiarity, the while she realized the mo 
 mentous fact that his life depended on her nod. 
 
 "Yes. I didn t come to see you this time," he 
 added. "I promised myself the hardihood to wait 
 until the war was over." 
 
 Eoolish words! They put a taunting tongue to 
 the nature of his mission evident from his garb. 
 They said to her: "Your heart will not let you di 
 vulge my secret, now, will it, after all ?" Under the 
 spell of them, her reply was as cold and sharp as the 
 rapier-point of her sudden determination. 
 
 "You come to leam if we are weak enough to let 
 your house-burners destroy Lynchburg! I will tell 
 our Colonel where to find u spy !" 
 
 400 
 
XLIII 
 
 WHICH HAS LIMITS 
 
 He bowed, yet not so low that she had not a view 
 of his laughing eyes, which made the sign of a cul 
 prit s mock confession as his parting message. Well 
 he knew that his capture meant that he would be 
 hanged. !N"ot bravado, not contempt for death life 
 being as dear to him as the interest and excitement 
 of promised achievement can make it rather the 
 fascination of the situation held him in his tracks 
 while he saw her accost the foremost officer of an ap 
 proaching group. 
 
 Something in the Colonel s attitude told the lone 
 figure, with his head thrown back as if welcoming 
 the rain in sheer, unrestrained physical exuberance, 
 that she had indeed kept her word. There was yet 
 time for him to make a good fight for escape by 
 plunging into the swamp, where a horse could go 
 little faster than a man, to say nothing of the fact 
 that he had a rifle against the revolvers of the offi 
 cers. Still he tarried^ with the helpless intoxication 
 of one who cannot resist a denouement. Would she 
 remain steadfast to her threat when it came to the 
 very performance of it ? Was there no answering 
 love for him, was there not at least the pull of asso 
 ciation deep under the crust of factional strife ? If 
 there was, it would stay her at the critical moment, 
 
 401 
 
THE VAGABOND 
 
 he thought dimly, as he looked toward the soggy 
 fields. He felt, if he did not see, the cavalcade grow 
 ing nearer. When they were close, the Colonel and 
 Volilla leading, he looked up and saluted the one, 
 while he smiled at the other. Her face was stern. 
 
 "Deliver up that rifle, my fine sir !" the Colonel 
 said, whipping out his revolver suddenly. 
 
 The Vagabond complied pleasantly. It did not 
 matter so much that his doom was sealed as that she 
 had sealed it. He was spellbound by her deed rather 
 than by his own fate. 
 
 "And you had the audacity to keep your sabre, 
 too!" the Colonel stormed, at sight of the U. S. A. 
 on the belt and the very contempt for Confederate 
 acumen that it seemed to imply. 
 
 The Vagabond felt his hand going to his hilt in 
 further compliance; he realized that he was still 
 smiling in set intensity; he knew that he was going 
 to sell his life as dearly as he could, and that end 
 would be best served by bringing the blade out of its 
 scabbard in the begrudging languor that seems to ac 
 cept the inevitable, belying its contemplated flash 
 into action with the energy of despair. His plan 
 needed only the confidence of boyhood and rare cool 
 ness. However much manhood had taught him about 
 other things, it could teach him nothing in this. The 
 quality of lightning thought and lightning execution 
 and clear perception in a crisis were born in him 
 along with his sentiment. He could feel his toes 
 shucking in his wet boots as he raised himself on 
 them and measured the lunge to the Colonel s heart, 
 and counted on the fury of his overhead slashes until 
 the staff brought him down. Then, as the sabre 
 
 402 
 
THE VAGABOND 
 
 cleared its peaceful threshold, her voice broke on his 
 ear as from a great distance : 
 
 "Colonel, please ask the prisoner to take off his 
 cap." 
 
 This he did mechanically, still holding fast to his 
 sabre, while he saw that she was scrutinizing him 
 with seemingly disinterested curiosity. Her ruse, 
 too, was worthy of her. It showed, besides, how 
 worthy she was of him. 
 
 "I was mistaken, Colonel," she said, in the same 
 matter-of-fact manner. "The resemblance is remark 
 able, though." 
 
 The Colonel s expression changed as suddenly as 
 that of a fisherman when his trout breaks away from 
 the hook. 
 
 "What regiment do you belong to you strag 
 gler?" 
 
 "First Georgy, sir." 
 
 "What the devil are you doing here ? Where did 
 you get that Yankee sabre ?" 
 
 The Vagabond, with the proper respect and yet the 
 proper nonchalance of the man who is perfectly sure 
 of the unimpeachability of his conduct, related how 
 he had pipped that Yankee officer out of his saddle. 
 
 "Didn t you find any papers on him ?" 
 
 "No, sir." 
 
 The Colonel was a suspicious man by nature, of 
 the kind who would not be sure that there were only 
 slugs under a stone until he had lifted it. 
 
 "Show me the way to him !" he cried. 
 
 Against this new turn of affairs there was nothing 
 that Volilla could do or say, even if she had been of 
 the mind. 
 
 403 
 
THE VAGABOND 
 
 "It s a good piece, Colonel," said the Vagabond, as 
 solicitously as a well-meaning private could. 
 
 "Probably seems a good piece to you. Come along. 
 Miss Lanley" the Colonel lifted his cap with a 
 flourish "I am as glad for your own sake as for our 
 men s that there are no wounded," and she rode away 
 toward the South. 
 
 On his part, the Vagabond had only the view of 
 her back, and the mighty happiness over her weaken 
 ing when the vital test came disappeared in his new 
 difficulty. One plan after another for ridding him 
 self of the Colonel was dismissed, until he thought of 
 this. When they should come to a tree he would jump 
 behind it and with his rifle pay this partv armed only 
 with revolvers and sabres for the trouble they had 
 made him. But, unfortunately, the prime adjunct at 
 that moment lay across the saddle-horn of the Col 
 onel s aide. 
 
 "I ll take that spitfire of mine if you say, sir," he 
 said, advancing toward it. 
 
 "Never mind; you ve got to walk," said the Col 
 onel, quashing the hope of escape with his considera 
 tion for a weary private. 
 
 "Yes, sir." 
 
 When he started across the fields, it was with the 
 determination of giving the Colonel and his staff 
 their money s worth. With their horses floundering 
 behind him, he was not in the least oblivious of the 
 humor of the situation. His one chance was to lead 
 the Colonel on until they should be rushed by his own 
 men, who were doubtless keeping close to the Con 
 federates in the same exasperating way that the Col 
 onel was keeping close to him. He went as fast as 
 
THE VAGABOND 
 
 he could without running, and, finding a ridge of 
 higher ground where the going was better, he 
 made their horses fall into a trot to keep up with 
 him. 
 
 "About how much farther is it?" demanded the 
 Colonel, finally. 
 
 "I can t say just. It s right over there some piece." 
 The Vagabond pointed straight ahead. 
 
 "That s just where you pointed before." 
 
 "Yes, sir. I tried to bring you in a straight line 
 so as to save distance." 
 
 "Is it beyond those trees there, or this side of 
 em ?" 
 
 "A little beyond, sir." 
 
 "What kind of soldiers do you breed in Georgia, 
 anyway ? That s farther than our forces have been. 
 How could you get that distance from your regiment ? 
 Are you a separate command?" 
 
 The Vagabond had expected this inquiry long be 
 fore, but the Colonel was rather stupid as well as 
 tenacious. 
 
 "As I was telling you, sir, I m considered pretty 
 slick at dodging in and out, and they put me on the 
 flank by my lonesome, to see what I could see. I 
 seen this Yank a good distance away tie his horse to 
 a tree and sneak up on foot, and I tried to get be 
 tween him and his horse and couldn t ; but I brought 
 him down after he was in the saddle. It ain t much 
 farther; fifteen minutes walk, Colonel." 
 
 "Fifteen for those legs of yours ?" 
 
 "Yes, sir ; these legs of mine can work up a power 
 ful lot of motion on a bacon-rind and a hoe-cake. I 
 reckon if this war lasts much longer I can. get a 
 
 405 
 
THE VAGABOND 
 
 square meal by running a rind back and forth under 
 my nose." 
 
 This brought the laugh which the Vagabond 
 craved. 
 
 "With such soldiers/ the Colonel declared to his 
 aide, "the blue-bellies will never whip us." 
 
 "If you d like/ the Vagabond added, "you can 
 wait here, sir, and I ll run on ahead and look the 
 body over again to see if there are any papers." 
 
 Given that much lead, he was certain that he 
 could escape. Alas, the Colonel s good-humor only 
 gave him an idea for winning his General s praise. 
 He concluded to ride on, thinking that he might 
 come in contact with the enemy and gain information, 
 though he found nothing valuable on the Yankee of 
 ficer. Directly, there appeared on the edge of the 
 woods, which was their objective, a line of horsemen, 
 not more than four or five hundred yards away. The 
 Vagabond recognized them instantly as his own men.- 
 
 "About a troop, I should say," observed the Col 
 onel, looking through his glasses. 
 
 For the Vagabond there was safety and honor and 
 command within sight if! 
 
 "If the Lieutenant there will just let me have that 
 little pet of mine I reckon I can tally one over there," 
 he suggested to the Colonel. 
 
 "You ll bring em all down on us" which was 
 precisely what the Vagabond wanted. "No, we ll be 
 going back." 
 
 Even as he spoke, the Vagabonds began a circling 
 movement toward the West, as if they were bound 
 for the flank of the Confederates, while their Cap 
 tain, in his sadly bedraggled Confederate gray, knew 
 
 40G 
 
THE VAGABOND 
 
 that they were seeking him, and was helpless to give 
 them that word which would have left the man on 
 foot to their gentle mercy while the officers fled to 
 save themselves. 
 
 "Colonel, the way we came I reckon is best for the 
 horses, but I can cut across there to the road on foot, 
 if you don t mind." 
 
 "We ll all cut across. Young man, you re pretty 
 clever, but you make too d many suggestions," the 
 Colonel concluded. "Step along lively there and obey 
 orders !" 
 
 The Vagabond began to realize that he was tired ; 
 the mud seemed much deeper than it was when he 
 was approaching his own lines. His chance of es 
 cape was now entirely embraced in the length of time 
 that a drunken torpor should last. The rain and the 
 moist, cold bed of mud must soon bring, if it had not 
 already, that private to a sense of his position, when, 
 crying his wrongs as he went, he would start in 
 search of the man who had betrayed his identity. 
 They found the road vacant, all the troops that had 
 gone out in the sortie apparently having returned to 
 the garrison town. As they approached the two dead 
 horses and the dead Confederate soldier whose sad 
 dle the Vagabond had emptied for Jimmy s sake, the 
 Colonel s maledictions on the heads of their Yankee 
 murderers were interrupted by a howl of "Murder ! 
 Thieves! Doctor! Doctor!" 
 
 The horsemen stopped ; but before they could seek 
 the source of the outcry the tipsy private, a club in 
 his hand, his bloodshot eyes popping and his face ex 
 pressing ghastly perplexity and resentment of foul 
 wrong, sprang out of the bushes. He halted at sight 
 
 407 
 
THE .VAGABOND 
 
 of the Vagabond as if lie had seen ghosts. He did not 
 recognize the man, but there was no mistaking the 
 identity of his own ragged coat. 
 
 "I know that patch !" he cried, wildly. "He did 
 it ! He did it ! While I fainted he took my clothes 
 and left these ! He is a Yankee ! a Yankee ! Look 
 at his sabre ! Look at his belt !" 
 
 "Well, you ve got em again, Bill," said the Vaga 
 bond. "You would have that officer s brandy all to 
 yourself when you were already full up with the 
 corn whiskey you had taken away from that poor old 
 woman. Of course, you don t remember now how 
 mean you acted about it." 
 
 "Bill" simply looked and gasped on hearing this. 
 He wondered if it were true. He was not certain of 
 anything since he drank that corn whiskey. 
 
 "You see, Colonel," the Vagabond went on, glibly, 
 "I didn t tell you about Bill s share in taking that 
 Yankee, cause I didn t want you to see the shape 
 Bill s in. He grabbed the brandy-flask and the 
 clothes, too, and I let him have em to humor him. 
 All I wanted was the sabre that s the real trophy, 
 sir." 
 
 Having directed himself entirely to the Colonel, 
 he did not observe "Bill," who had recalled definitely 
 that he had not taken any bottle from a poor old 
 woman. This gave Bill strength and assurance ; his 
 injured virtue rose into a maudlin rage. Before any 
 one realized his intention, he had brought the Vaga 
 bond to earth with a quick blow from the rear. 
 
 408 
 
XLIV 
 
 TO EISK IS TO PAY 
 
 The next that the Vagabond knew, someone was 
 fingering about his throat and saying: 
 
 "I reckon no Georgia private is wearing as fine 
 undershirts as that these days. W. W., eh? Won 
 der what those initials stand for?" 
 
 It did not take long to ascertain from papers in 
 his pocket that they stood for William Williams, 
 whose name and importance were not unknown to the 
 officers present. The prisoner, with growing con 
 sciousness, tried to move, and found that his wrists 
 had been tied. 
 
 "It is a great compliment to me, sir, that five 
 armed Confederates are afraid of my two poor 
 hands," he said. 
 
 "Nothing but the usual treatment of a spy," was 
 the reply. 
 
 "You mean of a commissioned officer taken in 
 action." This claim was so fragile that he made it 
 all the more boldly. 
 
 "Of a man disguised in our uniform, who will be 
 shot as a spy, or hung more likely hung." The Col 
 onel s cheeks were still stinging with resentment at 
 the way he had been tricked. 
 
 "Yes, disguised on the moment and still retaining 
 his sabre, and, therefore, entirely within his rights," 
 
 409 
 
THE VAGABOND 
 
 "When it is a matter of gallantry to an enemy," 
 the Colonel went on, "I yield to no man. To you, 
 sir rise and move on !" 
 
 Placed between the Colonel and one of his aides, 
 with the private, his rifle in hand, watching him a lit 
 tle to the rear, the prisoner kept pace with his captors. 
 
 " Thought you could pick off one of those Yankee 
 horsemen if I d let you have your rifle ; thought you d 
 get to your company quicker if we separated, did 
 you ?" growled the Colonel, after a time, in doubt 
 whether to consider the capture as a compliment to 
 himself or quite the contrary. "Going to lead me to 
 the corpse of that Yankee officer, weren t you?" 
 
 "Well, Colonel, since I m the officer," was the smil 
 ing response, "and since you say I m to die all you 
 have to do is to follow me, as I said, and you ll see 
 that I kept my word." 
 
 The Colonel s laugh came up from his gaunt in 
 terior in increasing force until he beat his sides. 
 
 "I confess you stick to a man like his mother-in- 
 law," the Vagabond continued. "It s no blame of 
 mine that I didn t get away; it s entirely owing to 
 your carefulness." 
 
 Under the caress of such flattery, the Colonel soon 
 concluded that he had acted wisely and well, and his 
 chagrin disappeared. The inevitable consequence 
 was admiration for the Vagabond s good-humor, 
 which he expressed for the second time before they 
 ran the gauntlet of the curious soldiers of the garri 
 son and the prisoner found himself under guard at 
 dusk in a tobacco warehouse which had been impro 
 vised into a prison. A plate of rice and bacon was 
 served to him by the light of a candle, which was 
 
 410 
 
THE VAGABOND 
 
 taken away when the meal was finished on the plea 
 that candles were "skeerce." He heard the talk of 
 loitering soldiers outside the window, brought by a 
 curiosity which the pacing sentry partially satisfied 
 in a manner not entirely complimentary to the pris 
 oner and yet by no means entirely uncomplimentary. 
 
 "Yes, sir, it s William Williams, the devil that 
 made the charge at Manassas (Bull Eun) ; that s cut 
 through our lines ag in an ag in; that burned the 
 grist-mill at Clairville yistiddy ! He don t look harf 
 as ornery as he is ; fact, don t look ornery at all. Tall, 
 blue-eyed cuss ; that smiles as if hangin was a fur 
 lough." 
 
 When, his arms pressing those of two men of a 
 corporal s guard, he was led across the street to the 
 town-hall, now the commanding general s head-quar 
 ters, he strained his eyes in the darkness in a hope 
 that Yolilla might be in the little crowd, though he 
 well knew that it was against all reason that she 
 should. He was conducted into a room where half 
 a dozen officers were seated around a table lighted 
 by two candles the court-martial ! At the head was 
 the General, a man with scraggly beard, dark, pierc 
 ing eyes, thin lips, a big, aquiline nose, a protruding 
 chin, and a narrow forehead. He was sunk low in 
 his chair, smoking a cob pipe, and beyond his sharp 
 and steady gaze he made no sign in recognition of 
 the prisoner s entry. The Colonel was seated at one 
 side, evidently a witness, and the Vagabond adjudged 
 himself wise to have made this boaster his friend. 
 Without removing his pipe, sententiously, with a 
 certain rough dignity, the General named the charges, 
 and called for the captor s story. But it was soon 
 
 411 
 
THE VAGABOND 
 
 evident that the Colonel s good-humor had heen cur 
 ried only to exalt his egotism. According to his 
 Bobadilian tale, he had a subtle appreciation in 
 stantly he looked into the prisoner s eye that there 
 was something wrong with him. He neglected to men 
 tion such a detail as the hint he had received from 
 Volilla. 
 
 "I questioned him, sir," said the Colonel, "and his 
 answers were suspicious. I had no proof except my 
 intuition my intuition, sir. Said I, Young man, 
 you don t get out of my sight. Let us see your Union 
 officer you killed. He took me toward the place, hut 
 it was always beyond, beyond beyond, in the Yan 
 kee lines. I was convinced ; but still I had no proof. 
 Then the private with whom he exchanged clothes ap 
 peared. By a stratagem I was able to bring him to 
 you alive, a simple stratagem, as follows," and thus 
 he ran on. 
 
 The General had shown no sign of interest beyond 
 knocking his pipe-bowl with his knuckles and leaning 
 forward to relight the heel, when the bright light and 
 his cheeks sucked in made his face sinister and un 
 compromising. 
 
 "You re positively Machiavellian," he said, dryly, 
 when the Colonel had finished. Then he called for 
 the private, who, under his sharp questioning, was 
 obliged to include the cause of his discomfiture in his 
 testimony. After he had retired, somewhat crest 
 fallen, the General turned to the Vagabond, his eyes 
 drawn to two beads of bitter scrutiny. 
 
 The Vagabond met the stare with his lips parted, 
 his head thrown back, and a smile playing on his lips, 
 while his blue eyes, as they had on another occasion, 
 
 412 
 
THE VAGABOND 
 
 received the shaft as the sea receives the lightning. 
 Angry with himself for making jokes to please his 
 captor, his dignity now came back full panoplied in 
 a fine contempt. He was in their power, he reasoned ; 
 he had taken a risk, and had been caught, and it 
 was not his place to cavil. So he found pleasure in 
 answering the General s searching questions with 
 outspoken truth. The sympathy of the younger 
 members of the court was chivalrously enlisted 
 when, finally, the General asked if he had anything 
 to say for himself. They leaned forward expectantly, 
 hoping and believing, such was his reputation, that 
 audaciously and cunningly he was keeping back some 
 master-stroke in his favor as a climax. 
 
 "Nothing," he replied. 
 
 The General was an irreconcilable ; one of those 
 stern believers whose sacrifices for even a false prin 
 ciple always awaken more admiration than the most 
 ardent weather-vane that swings over an expansive 
 coat and a well-filled stomach. If souls do revisit the 
 scenes of their activity, then his is still charging up 
 and down the Shenandoah at the head of his shattered 
 cohorts. 
 
 "By every rule of war you are a spy. The time 
 for the Confederacy to draw fine distinctions is past," 
 he said. "We have not forgotten that in the Gettys 
 burg campaign General Lee impressed nothing and 
 destroyed nothing; nor have we forgotten" it 
 seemed as if the breath carrying the words came ice- 
 cold between his white teeth, showing now that his 
 pipe was removed with each clearly uttered word of 
 his slowly spoken sentences "the nature of General 
 Sheridan s return in the Valley campaign. He made 
 
 413 
 
THE VAGABOND 
 
 tlie land as bare as your hand. If a drunken Union 
 soldier was shot by one of his own comrades in a 
 brawl, he killed the adult inhabitants of the vicinity 
 and burned their houses, but in his infinite tender 
 ness set the children adrift to starve while he served 
 out rations and feather-beds to the blacks." 
 
 Every exaggerated rumor about the North was as 
 surely gospel to the General as those about the South 
 to the abolitionist agitator. 
 
 "General Sheridan is my superior and my hero, sir, 
 and you will realize the helplessness of my position 
 to make adequate rejoinder," said the Vagabond. 
 
 "I beg your pardon, and I stand corrected," ob 
 served the General; then continued, "Sheridan jus 
 tified his action on the ground of military necessity. 
 On that ground, you shall be shot to-morrow morn 
 ing. I will not hang any brave man, no matter how 
 bad he is." 
 
 414 
 
XLVi 
 
 WHEN LIFE CALLS 
 
 The Vagabond s soft whistle to keep a cry from 
 his lips was taken, as well it might be from his atti 
 tude and expression, as signifying the finest stoicism. 
 Even the General was affected. 
 
 "Have you any request to make ?" he asked, more 
 pleasantly than he had yet spoken. 
 
 "Only this : I think, gentlemen, that any one of you 
 being in my position and of my rank would have dis 
 guised himself as gladly as I did for the same object." 
 It pleased their fancy that they would ; they nodded. 
 "I did not lose my sabre in actual conflict," he went 
 on. "I need not say to you how dear his sabre is to 
 a cavalry-man when he has wielded it for four years. 
 I recognize that it is your prize. Nevertheless, I am 
 going to ask that I may name the person whose prize 
 it shall be a Confederate. Do you consent, Gen 
 eral?" 
 
 "Yes." 
 
 "And one thing more. I have a note to send witH 
 the sabre. I see you have pen, ink, and paper there. 
 May I write it now ?" 
 
 His strange request was granted, and seating him 
 self he wrote, under the shadow of death, in his confi 
 dent way, as if she, indeed, were his betrothed: 
 
 415 
 
THE VAGABOND 
 
 "I am sending you my sabre. Will you, as a last 
 favor to a soldier of the enemy, let it have a place 
 on the walls of that new Lanleyton which awaits you 
 as mistress one of these days ? I ask you to believe 
 that, despite all reports, it has ever been clean. It 
 would not be if I had not drawn it for my principles 
 against the dictates of my heart s love. Though I 
 have fought against you and yours, it has been to 
 hasten the time when I should come to you, still 
 hoping after the long wait, in the first halcyon days 
 of peace. The chance of war prevents this and re 
 lieves you of embarrassment. Besides, it is fitting, 
 I should say, that you should have my sabre, for you 
 alone ever disarmed me. May it remind you that my 
 story was true, and make you think no evil of me. 
 Long ago, I had willed such interest in my mine as 
 it was fair to my partners to give, to you. May it re 
 mind you that one of the house-burners preferred to 
 be a house-builder. My reward I have already en 
 joyed in the better manhood I have drawn from 
 knowing you, from dreaming of you, and from 
 loving you. 
 
 "YouR VAGABOND." 
 
 "I will trust you, General, to keep the name of the 
 person a secret." 
 
 On reading the name the General looked from the 
 envelope to the prisoner sharply, but otherwise gave 
 no sign of his surprise. 
 
 "As you wish," he said. 
 
 Then, in his admiration, he advanced and held out 
 his hand to the Vagabond, as did each officer of the 
 
 416 
 
THE VAGABOND 
 
 court in turn, adding a kindly "Good-night." Such 
 politeness seems in this distant time as turning the 
 knife in a wound ; but these men had become too fa 
 miliar with death to think of it as more than a loss at 
 cards. Years of warfare had taken them out of them 
 selves. They were automatons of fate. 
 
 The corporal of the guard, who had overlooked the 
 trial, addressed the prisoner as "Sir" when they took 
 him back to darkness and the iron-barred room, where 
 he was left with only the sound of a sentry pacing up 
 and down the corridor and another outside the win 
 dow. It was now that reaction set in, and he began 
 to marvel at his coolness in face of death, as he had 
 sometimes marvelled at his readiness to take unneces 
 sary risks in action. 
 
 "A rich man, or with the makings of one fast in a 
 hill-side," he said, in disgust. "A rich man leaving 
 his property to swing a sabre on a captain s pay 
 while the noise of his machinery was calling him. A 
 rich man" he paused, the lines of the Judge s im 
 promptu peroration on the court-house steps running 
 through his mind. "That is not it. I count no more 
 than the private in the rear ranks. But I count as 
 much ! I count as much ! I am in the full tide of 
 youth. I have before me all the joy of manhood s 
 striving." 
 
 He thought of the quartz that awaited crushing to 
 feed the coffers of States and the crucibles of the 
 arts; of the mines undiscovered; of skill turning 
 bleak, unproductive surfaces into granaries of wealth ; 
 of how much there was yet to see and do ; of the 
 girdling, in fact, of the globe that he had often 
 girdled in vagabondish fancy. 
 
 417 
 
THE VAGABOND 
 
 Then the face of the girl beset him. The mole 
 was playing into the dimple, and he imagined her 
 on a porch in her riding-habit at dawn. He assisted 
 her to mount. They rode down a curving drive, and 
 then they stopped and looked back at the great house 
 he had built for her, and they looked at the fields 
 stretching afar, and they clasped hands, their eyes 
 brimming with their oneness, and said, "Ours ! ours ! 
 ours !" The prospect of such mornings, the prospect 
 of work and strife and loving and being loved, beck 
 oned to him from the vista of the long years seem 
 ing so long from the younger side which bring sil 
 ver hairs. 
 
 "It is a little hard, a little hard !" he half -whis 
 pered, "and I had thought that a few men might be 
 better and live better for my being in the world." 
 
 Presently he told himself that he had only been 
 building again on the basis of her love. This roseate 
 future that he pictured involved a condition which 
 his very presence behind those bars made an impos 
 sibility. That she was unaware of his capture and 
 of his sentence as well was inconceivable. She had 
 come to him with no word of sympathy; there was 
 no evidence that she had lifted her finger to mitigate 
 his punishment. He was strictly a spy to her, 
 strictly an enemy of her people, now, for whom no 
 exception should be made. It had not occurred to 
 him to seek her assistance. Importunity was out 
 side his nature. She had saved his life once when his 
 folly endangered it; only the certainty of her love 
 could give him an excuse for asking that which before 
 she had granted without the asking, when folly, this 
 time not for her sake but for folly s sake alone, had 
 
 418 
 
THE VAGABOND 
 
 been his downfall. He had played ; he had lost ; and 
 he must lay the blame at his own door. 
 
 If he might not have her, he thought, then the 
 knowledge of the fact should reconcile him to death 
 philosophy that did not long prevail. It was hope 
 less for him to contemplate the few brief hours he had 
 without her in the scheme. His imagination again 
 placed her at his side. Before morning he had a life s 
 work to do. He began by showing her the mine; 
 there was the new machinery to be installed, the 
 house to build, the trip to Europe, all in the first few 
 years. Over every fancied day he might spend a 
 fancied minute. Sleep was as out of the question as 
 his rescue by a miracle. Criminals may rest well and 
 eat well in the face of the gallows; your man of 
 spirit and honor has food for thought, and the dig 
 nity of his departure, when life pulls him with the 
 strands of ambition and varied interests, is that of 
 pride and culture rather than that of the fatted calf. 
 Out of the last second he should draw the imagery 
 of combat with obstacles. So he lived on, month by 
 month a man in a dream until the striking of the 
 town-clock at the hour of four brought him back 
 to his cell. The symphony was at end; the seats were 
 being pulled up in banging chorus. 
 
 Of a sudden he had the feeling of the lion awakened 
 to find himself bound by the web of thread woven 
 by the pattering mouse. He was to be shot while 
 he was inanimate as a stick of wood. Masculine 
 force, which is never quite reconciled to death, now 
 ran high. Could he have had the General and his 
 court before him at that moment, he would have de 
 fied them in a rage to give him a broom-stick against 
 
 419 
 
THE VAGABOND 
 
 all their swords. He groped his way to the iron- 
 barred windows and softly, so that the sentry should 
 not hear, he tested them one by one. All were fast. 
 His fingers ran down one to its base and then up 
 to the top. They were not set in stone, but in wood 
 sills, that had been hastily put in when the ware 
 house was turned into a jail. He patted that wood 
 as if it were his lost child, found. All that he needed 
 was something to cut, and he would soon have an 
 opening and a weapon in hand. He ran his fingers 
 through his pockets in useless effort, for his knife 
 had been taken from him with his sabre. He groped 
 over the floor for some cutting instrument, and not 
 so much as a sliver of rock could he find. In an 
 hour it would be light. He had only his nails to 
 work with, and were they of chilled steel he could 
 not have freed himself. He leaned against the bars 
 for a moment of abandoned helplessness. The silence 
 of the town, broken only by the sentry s footsteps, 
 seemed to press the breath out of his lungs. Then, 
 when the sentry was at the opposite end of his beat, 
 he heard a soft whisper very near at hand, and he 
 knew that Marcus Aurelius, though he could not see 
 his black face for the inky night, was on the other 
 side of the bars. 
 
 "Missy Lanley she do nuffinM I " The sentry 
 was approaching and silence followed. "I bringed 
 yo 7 dis knife. Yo ? kin cut dose bars out o de wood. 
 When yo se out, sneak long dis side o de street tell 
 yo come to Marcus Aurelius " and the black phi 
 losopher was gone. 
 
 She would do nothing! She knew, then! She 
 might already have his sabre. Why should he make 
 
 420 
 
THE VAGABOND 
 
 the effort, when bereft of the very object of living? 
 But effort was manna to him; a fighting chance, in 
 toxication. Softly he began to ply the knife at the 
 base of the middle bar. In the darkness the work was 
 slow; the iron was sunk deeper than he thought and 
 spread at the end and clamped with nails, so he had 
 to free it from above as well as below. The breaking 
 of dawn found him with one bar free, but without 
 an opening large enough for his body. At least he 
 had a weapon that assured his death in action. 
 
 Then he heard steps in the corridor, and the bolt 
 of the door slide back. The guard had come for 
 him. He could feel his muscles straining like haw 
 sers while he waited for them to enter. 
 
 As the door opened he sprang forward, and at the 
 same instant, as if to give him zest for his last struggle, 
 there came to his ears from a distance the rush of 
 hoofs and the cry of "Yankee cavalry!" waking the 
 echoes of the silent streets. Was it Jimmy and Tim 
 and his brave fellows? Had they swept into a gar 
 rison town, with all the odds against them, for his 
 sake? The corporal and the guard seemed no more 
 than men of straw with bayonets of paper in his way. 
 In that second, when to dodge an inch too far might 
 mean life or death, he had the confidence and the 
 quickness of the cat. One man prepared for his on 
 slaught was better than five men unprepared, who 
 had only rifles, always clumsy at close quarters, for 
 which he, himself, had the best of weapons. 
 
 The soldiers had expected to find a helpless being, 
 and found a devil, who rushed at them with arm up 
 lifted. He did not even give the corporal of the 
 guard the honor of a blow, but felled him as his 
 
 421 
 
THE VAGABOND 
 
 equilibrium was in the balance from the sudden halt 
 of surprise. Before their rifles could be raised, he 
 had struck the heads of the two nearest soldiers with 
 two nervous blows, as if they were a pair of kettle 
 drums. He seized hold of the rifle of the man behind 
 and shoved its butt into his stomach as he whirled 
 him around until he was actually between him and 
 the only remaining one, who blew a cartridge into 
 the ceiling. Still they were at the disadvantage of 
 the unexpected, still the supreme idea of overcoming 
 him dazed their minds, so that they had no wit to 
 assist their force. They supposed that he would run 
 away. It was the natural thing to do. Instead, he 
 tripped the man nearest him and, throwing his whole 
 weight against him as he did so, sent him sprawling 
 back into the room. The corporal had struck his 
 head when he fell, and lay stunned on the stone floor. 
 The others were rising. The Vagabond jumped back, 
 and swinging the great door to, bolted it. 
 
 All this had been done in the time that it took 
 the sentry to reach the doorway and shout for help. 
 And the sentry, too, came upon the unexpected, for 
 the bayonet of the purloined rifle caught him as he 
 sprang, his bullet flying over the Vagabond s head 
 and ricochetting on down the corridor. 
 
 But beyond, in the open street that could be raked 
 by rifle-fire, lay a greater danger than that which 
 the prisoner had thwarted. 
 
 422 
 
XLYI 
 
 TO LIE AND LIE WELL 
 
 Volilla was living on the opposite side of the street, 
 only a stone s throw from the warehouse. She knew 
 immediately of the Vagabond s arrest, and Marcus 
 Aurelius, who had loitered about the town-hall during 
 the trial, hastened to her with the verdict. She ex 
 hibited no surprise, for he had brought only the news 
 of a foregone conclusion. 
 
 "For de Lawd Gord s sake, Missy Yo !" he cried. 
 "Has dis yer war made yo so hard-hearted dat yo 
 kin hyah dat ez ef twuz no mo dan sendin a fiel 
 han t jail? Yo se gwine t do some n , ain yo ? Yo 
 ain gwine t see im shot?" 
 
 "Why should I do anything for a Yankee spy?" 
 she asked. 
 
 " Cause he s jes one o de fines men dat uver 
 lived; cause he heart is de bes es heart a man could 
 have, on y he got a little screw loose in he head dat 
 mek im t ink niggers oughter be free. Who care 
 bout dat little screw when he s got de bes es heart? 
 Cause cause he loves yo ; he loves yo , an* yo 
 loves im!" 
 
 "I love him! I don t. How dare you speak to me 
 in this way?" 
 
 " Cause I se yo ole sarvant, dat goes whar yo go, 
 
THE VAGABOND 
 
 nuver mindin de hunger or de wedder or de bullets. 
 Cause jo 7 taught me t tell de truf, Missy Vo." 
 
 "Then tell it, and don t be ridiculous." 
 
 "It s redick lus fur yo t set dyah doin nuttin . 
 He s redick lus cause he lose all he senses when he 
 see yo , he loves yo so har ; cause de very sight o 
 yo mek im dazed like when yo bring a man out o 
 de dark into de sunlight." 
 
 Unconsciously he had explained the Vagabond s 
 strange conduct in inviting recognition as he stood 
 by the roadside. The realization of this now clutched 
 her heart. 
 
 "He wan countable nohow yistiddy. I know." 
 And for the first time he told the story of the tur 
 quoise locket. "When he see dat piece o writin , 
 an he t ink how yo kyared it nex yo heart, it s 
 jes ez ef he wake up out o pu gatory an he wuz 
 walkin in a fiel o flowers all a-twinklin wid honey 
 dew. He keep right on walkin an nuver see no man 
 wid a rifle a-hidin in de flowers yo flowers, Missy 
 Vo!" 
 
 "And you let him keep that locket, you, my ser 
 vant! Are you in his pay?" 
 
 "Yes, ma am, I is." 
 
 His blunt confession sunk all other considerations. 
 
 "You, Marcus!" she exclaimed. She could not 
 comprehend such disloyalty. She could not believe 
 the Vagabond guilty of such perfidy. 
 
 "In dis a-way I se in he pay, jes ez I se in yo pay 
 cause I ain gettin no money frum no one. Dem 
 dat considers pay in dis time ain doin what I se been 
 doin not fur nuttin . T se a trained sarvant wuk- 
 kin fur glory. My pay is de pleasure I gets in sarvin 
 
 424 
 
THE VAGABOND 
 
 a real lady or gent man all de pleasure ole Marcus 
 got lef in dis hyah worl wid plenty o promises an 
 no guarantee fur de nex . Yo se a lady; tie s a gent - 
 man. An de grandes pay I uver got from any gent - 
 man I got from im when he wuz sick at LanPton 
 he smile an he manner! Money! If it s money I se 
 arfter, don yo s pose one o dem new-made Yankee 
 gin rals ud like a sarvant dat could teach em a little 
 quality? Lawd! Cause I ain no fool dem ab lition- 
 is fo ks would dress me up an put me on de lechture 
 stage to show how smart de niggers is. Fo de 
 Lawd Gord, if yo won do nuttin , de time has 
 come fur Marcus t desert an git a mule an ride 
 way!" 
 
 He stiffened in dignity and started from the room. 
 
 "Stop, Marcus!" She laid her hand on his arm 
 and patted it, while tears glistened in his devoted 
 eyes. "I knew you would not be in anybody s pay. 
 I was angry when I said that. I m afraid I ve been 
 very neglectful. I never think of you. I take your 
 loyalty for granted." 
 
 "It am yo place t t ink o me; it s my place t 
 t ink o yo . Yo been neglectful ! Why, yo se divided 
 yo las biscuit wid me like lie would. Dat s it 
 yo two, yo two! De Lawd meant yo fur each urr, 
 an in droppin yo out o heaven de win tuk im t 
 de urr side o de Potomac." 
 
 "Yes, the other side of the Potomac. That is 
 enough, even if I did love him. Love him! Why 
 should I talk of that? I don t; of course I don t! I 
 won t ! As an act of mercy I will save him. I don t 
 believe in executions. The General is too fond of 
 them. A telegram to General Lee the first favor I 
 
 425 
 
THE .VAGABOND 
 
 have ever asked of him will get him reprieve; I 
 know it will." 
 
 "So twould, Missy Yo. I fought o dat. But de 
 wire s been cut dis eveninV 
 
 Then, indeed, she was all concern. 
 
 "You re sure? No, it can t be; it can t be!" she 
 cried. "Go! Be quick! Ask again if it won t be 
 up before morning. Go, quick!" 
 
 She sprang for the door and opened it for him, 
 closed it slowly after he was out, and sank into a 
 chair. 
 
 "Perhaps his own company cut the wire," she 
 thought. "There s the horror of him: whatever I 
 do for him, I do for the enemy! Yet I would not 
 be a woman I would not be human if I did noth 
 ing. I cannot go to this General. A request from 
 me would only excite his suspicion. He must know 
 that it was I who first recognized the man. I I was 
 so certain that I could call on Uncle Robert ! He 
 has said so often that he would do anything I wished. 
 I I was so certain that I could telegraph, and and 
 I expected, of course, to save him again only I hated 
 to save Mm!" 
 
 Her head fell into her arms, and she sobbed she 
 knew not why. A knock at the door made her dry 
 her eyes. She rose and opened it, to admit the Com 
 mandant himself. 
 
 "You probably heard that we captured a Yankee 
 officer spying on our lines in Confederate uniform," 
 he announced, abruptly. He was always abrupt, more 
 especially so since his own home in the Shenandoah 
 Valley had been burned. 
 
 "Yes," she said, disinterestedly. "Won t you be 
 .420 
 
THE VAGABOND 
 
 seated, General on the lounge? The chairs are all 
 at the hospital." 
 
 " Since the trial, I have learned what was not de 
 veloped at the time that you first called attention 
 to the man. Afterward you said you were mistaken 
 in your identification." 
 
 "So I was." 
 
 "Another peculiar coincidence is that he asked us 
 to give you his sabre. Here is a note that accom 
 panies it." As he handed the folded paper, he re 
 garded her keenly, if not suspiciously. 
 
 "A note and sabre for me! Are you sure?" Her 
 amazement, even to the frown, was facile. 
 
 "Quite," said the taciturn soldier. 
 
 "Probably the note will explain. It will be more 
 soldierly, won t it, to read that before I surmise?" 
 
 Whatever her feelings were, no expression flitted 
 across her face, except that of anger and disgust. 
 She knew that he would want to know what the con 
 demned man had written. Likely this would put her 
 in a dubious light, and the Vagabond under double 
 guard. She must improvise, and improvise well! She 
 must lie, and lie well! 
 
 "This is worthy of a contemptible Yankee!" she 
 said. "The man put himself forward on the road. 
 His face was like that of a regular officer I had known 
 in Washington before the war. But that officer had 
 a scar across the forehead, and this one had none; so 
 I supposed that he was merely one of our own men 
 who was trying to impose on a girl with familiarity. 
 Would you like to know what the brute has written?" 
 
 "I intended to ask as much." 
 
 " My Fair One/ " she pretended to read from the 
 427 
 
THE VAGABOND 
 
 paper, " you did your part prettily. It pleases me 
 quite to have won favor so readily. It would have 
 been pleasant to have been imprisoned instead of shot. 
 Maybe then you might have brought me books to 
 read, and prison-life would not have been so dull. 
 However, I m to die in the morning, says the court, 
 and in honor of my last flirtation, please take this 
 sabre from a devil of a fellow. 
 
 Her anger kept rising as she read, and with the 
 last word she began tearing the paper in pieces. 
 
 "What insolence! Could anyone but a Yankee 
 conceive it?" she cried, as she threw the bits of paper 
 on the floor, with a gesture of disdain. 
 
 A smile felt its way outward from the General s 
 lips in unfrequented paths. 
 
 "A splendid soldier s foibles may be forgiven," he 
 said. "His courage and ability alone count. He 
 smiled when I sentenced him to be shot; he could be 
 gay and gallant in his kind of a way in the face of 
 death. I would keep the sabre, if I were you. It 
 is all the same whether it s the household cavalry of 
 Louis, with their laces fluttering, as if dying were a 
 posture in a dance, or the Puritans, singing hymns 
 as they charged: the trophy of a brave man is worth 
 having. Good-night, Miss Lanley." And he stalked 
 out, leaving her alone with the sputtering candle and 
 her falsehood. 
 
 "Oh, that I should have to act like that for the 
 sake of a Yankee captain!" was her angry thought. 
 
 She looked at the scattered note as if she would 
 try to patch together the pieces. But what need? 
 The original the horror of it and, yes, the tribute 
 of it was written on her brain. She felt that she 
 
 428 
 
THE VAGABOND 
 
 could repeat it, word for word, and wished that she 
 might forget it all. Her glance fell on the sabre, 
 which the General had left on the table, a service- 
 weapon with a leather wrist-cord instead of gilt braid 
 and a tassel. She put her hand on the hilt which his 
 had so often clasped, and in a fit of abstraction slowly 
 drew forth the blade. How easily it came; buoy 
 antly, smilingly, as if a part of its owner! Not a 
 spot marred its cold sheen. She ran her finger along 
 the keen battle-edge. How often had it clove the 
 flesh and drunk the blood of her people fighting for 
 their liberty! She thrust the steel home, as if to 
 blot out the picture it made, and picking up the ter 
 rible thing, took it to her bedroom, where she laid 
 it in a closet softly as if she feared to waken it. 
 
 " May it remind you that my story is true, and 
 may you think no evil of me/ " she quoted from the 
 note. "He is against everything that I hold dear. 
 He is to be shot in the morning! He asks nothing, 
 expects nothing, of me. He only said good-by. 
 I " Her words were cut short by the entrance of 
 Marcus. 
 
 "It s no use. De telegraph s done broke an it can t 
 be fixed to-night." 
 
 "Then we must help him to es 
 cape!" she said, slowly. 
 
 "Yessum, an we kin we kin!" 
 
 He bent his white head close to hers and whispered 
 his plan two plans, at once dependent and inde 
 pendent. 
 
 "But that might mean killing killing our own sol 
 diers! It is helping the enemy!" she cried. 
 
 "I reckon dat de chance is bes es fur killin de Yan- 
 429 
 
THE VAGABOND 
 
 kees. Killin ? Ain dis hyah a war ? Ain a war fur 
 mekin fights ? Is dis h yah. gar son af eerd o a parecel 
 o Sheridan s house-bu ners ?" 
 
 "Go! go, Marcus! How I shall expiate this new 
 offence against my country, I can t tell; but go you 
 must! Tell him you did it. Tell him I would do 
 nothing. Then he ll have no temptation to come 
 again!" 
 
 "Jes yo trus me! Nobody s gwine t pay any 
 Mention t a wuthless ole nigger!" And, the cunning 
 contraband again, he slouched away, rubbing his 
 hands at the prospect of adventure. 
 
 To her fell the more trying part that of waiting. 
 She drew the lounge near the window that overlooked 
 the warehouse, and lay down for a sleepless night. If 
 Marcus failed and dawn showed the Vagabond pass 
 ing out under guard to his death! What should she 
 do then? 
 
 490 
 
XLVII 
 
 JIMMY RECONSIDERS 
 
 With the first glimmer of light, her straining eyes 
 saw the corporal s guard enter the warehouse, and 
 her heart sank, only to leap when she heard the pound 
 ing thrum of hoofs on the bridge leading into the 
 town. If the first part of Marcus s plan had failed, 
 might not the guard with their prisoner run into the 
 arms of the Yankee cavalry, which would pluck their 
 leader out of the jaws of death and pass on? 
 
 "He will be saved!" 
 
 The cry was one of tear-brimming joy and relief, 
 arrested in her throat by the sight of him, bar in 
 hand, stepping alone out of the warehouse door, while 
 a bullet overhead knocked a spit of dust out of the 
 stone. She thought now that he would be shot by 
 the soldiers rushing to arms, before rescue could come, 
 and she dashed out of the room and down the stairs, 
 repeating, in her frenzy, "His horse! His horse, 
 Marcus!" 
 
 The Vagabond himself, as he emerged, saw, sus 
 pended in their action, as if snapped by a camera s 
 shutter, a platoon coming into the main street, and 
 beyond them his own Vagabonds naked blades greet 
 ing the sun of dawn in their charge. Did they know 
 where he was, or had they merely come on a hap 
 hazard quest? He had a fear that they would sweep 
 
 481 
 
THE VAGABOND 
 
 by without seeing him; while, with the instinct of the 
 veteran, he looked quickly in the opposite direction, 
 to make sure of every condition. A few yards away, 
 by the gate of a wooden wall of some compound or 
 other could he mistake the white foot, the broad 
 buttocks, the graceful head? It was Breaker, his 
 Breaker! Dropped out of the skies? Come on wings 
 ahead of his column? It did not matter. He was 
 there, his empty saddle calling! As, disdaining the 
 help of a stirrup, the Vagabond bounded to place, he 
 saw a black, wrinkled hand withdraw from the reins, 
 the door of the wall was closed with a bang, and from 
 behind it Marcus Aurelius s voice mumbled in re 
 buke: 
 
 "Dyah, yo fool of a sowger! Yo se out o trubble 
 ag in!" 
 
 The Vagabond whirled Breaker in his tracks in 
 time to see the platoon s formation broken into parts 
 by the charge of his men his own men whose speed 
 slackened as they approached the warehouse. Swing 
 ing the iron bar over his head in place of his sabre, 
 he hastened toward them. Between shouts he could 
 hear in the distance another roar of hoofs and every 
 where the hurrying footsteps from the barracks and 
 the lines toward the centre of strife. In a minute 
 they would be the focus of a field of bayonets and the 
 target of a raking fire from all directions. Jimmy 
 Pool, his unbooted, unstirruped, swollen foot in its 
 sock hanging limp, no sooner sang out a recognition 
 than he passed the order for the troop to continue its 
 pace, and the Vagabond, turning Breaker a second 
 time, was elbow to elbow with his first lieutenant; 
 while from the rear, above the pounding of hoofs and 
 
 432 
 
THE VAGABOND 
 
 the rattle of musketry, came the mighty voice of Tim 
 Booker : 
 
 "We don t care a whooping damn what happens 
 now!" 
 
 "The General doesn t know I m here," said Jimmy. 
 "He s moving along the James Canal. Expects us to 
 join him to-day. Southbridge has come up from 
 Lynchburg with five or six hundred fresh horses, just 
 off their winter forage. Saw him on the road not a 
 quarter of a mile back. River s a torrent. We ll be 
 hemmed in on all sides. You can t afford to be taken; 
 we can, being only prisoners, at the worst. Boon s we 
 get out into the country, you ve got to use the first 
 cover to separate from us and try a disguise." 
 
 "Jimmy! Have we been together for four years 
 and you ask me to do that?" 
 
 "No. I beg your pardon." And Jimmy was very 
 contrite, as he well might be, considering his own 
 standard of chivalry. 
 
 "The trouble is, we are going in the wrong direc 
 tion," said the Vagabond, directly, and he cried the 
 charge a halt. 
 
 Jimmy looked at him in blank amazement, while 
 the troopers bounced into the air with the abrupt jolt 
 as they heard the further order to face about. They 
 had just reached the edge of the town. The main 
 street through which they had ridden was filling with 
 the soldiery that had poured into it upon the general 
 alarm. 
 
 "Southbridge will come up with his full force as 
 fast as he can go, his sash and plume a-flying. I 
 know Southbridge. He doesn t lift his nose from a 
 scent." The men were in form now, leaning over 
 
 433 
 
THE VAGABOND 
 
 their horses manes to minimize the danger of the 
 rifle-fire. "Sound the call to boots and saddles I" 
 said the Vagabond to the bugler. Without being 
 misunderstood he could not have the charge sounded 
 twice, which would have better expressed his pur 
 pose of informing the Confederates of his intention. 
 
 "Boots and saddles! When we ve been in em for 
 days!" said a trooper, who expressed the utter aston 
 ishment of all. 
 
 "I want to give them time to receive us properly," 
 added the Vagabond. 
 
 Had the Captain s mind been touched by his ter 
 rible experience? Had he sunk his love of his men 
 in his own vanity? Because death was certain with 
 him, had he concluded that they must die with him? 
 What sane being could contemplate tossing a hundred 
 horse in column of fours against five or six hundred 
 infantry, after giving them time and warning? It 
 was throwing eggs against a rock. Jimmy was on 
 the point of calling for disobedience, but discipline 
 was too strong with him. The men were gritting their 
 teeth, feeling like pegs set up for murder, and yet 
 their love for their leader was too great, if not their 
 confidence in his wisdom, to make them speak the 
 fears of their hearts. They were ready to go to their 
 death without seeing any reason for it, and the appre 
 ciation of this admiration and trust was the most glori 
 ous moment of the Vagabond s career as a soldier, far 
 outstripping that of the charge. Tim Booker, the 
 complaining, had not once raised his voice. No; he 
 was running his thumb along the edge of his sabre 
 in a preoccupied manner. He had given up all hope 
 of the eternal hills of California and become as sin- 
 
 43 i 
 
THE VAGABOND 
 
 ister as the devil himself in preparing for his last 
 ride. 
 
 The General, hastening barefooted and coatless 
 from his bed, had placed with masterly rapidity a row 
 of bayonets six deep across the road and stretched 
 two or three companies facing one another along the 
 buildings on both sides in front of this. He compre 
 hended admiringly that this mad cavalry-man was 
 taking the small chance of getting back to Sheridan 
 against the heavy odds of death; that he preferred 
 selling his life dearly; preferred falling in action to 
 capture and certain execution. His adversary could 
 almost imagine the grim commander smiling as he 
 presented his blade-studded torso of steel and the long 
 arms of rifle-fire for murderous embrace. 
 
 Jimmy put his hand on his leader s arm and looked 
 at him tragically. "Billy! Billy!" he said, plain 
 tively. 
 
 Beyond the infantry appeared, now in increasing 
 size like an approaching locomotive, Southbridge s 
 force, whose coming was unknown to their compa 
 triots. 
 
 "Tricking policemen!" said the Vagabond to him 
 self, as he rose in his stirrups, turned to his men, and 
 called with all the strength of his lungs: 
 
 "Observe that cross street, just this side of the Re 
 ception Committee ! As you come to it, turn by fours 
 to the right and left and meet on the main road at 
 the bridge!" 
 
 "Oh! Of course!" gasped Jimmy. 
 
 As they broke into the charge, they saw an officer 
 spring out of the infantry s mass with arms uplifted 
 toward Southbridge s cavalry. As they swung into 
 
 435 
 
THE VAGABOND 
 
 the side streets, their last glimpse was of the lurching 
 mass of horses and men, while a few of the infantry 
 were firing or springing forward toward the cloud of 
 dust that the dividing column had left behind as a 
 mantle for its fallen. Both the General and South- 
 bridge must have understood instantly the turn was 
 made the meaning of it. The Vagabond expected as 
 much. He counted upon the time required for the 
 enemy to carry out the simple order needful to trap 
 him to bring him beyond immediate reach. A lieu 
 tenant in Southbridge s rear was the first to respond to 
 the General s call. As he charged down an alley, 
 Jimmy Pool saw him coming and cried the warning, 
 and as he emerged the sabre of the last man in Jim 
 my s party cut off his head as if it were a poppy s. It 
 was a valuable head, in that its loss made the party 
 that it led stop for reinforcements. 
 
 When the two divisions of the Vagabonds met, with 
 a shout of tribute to their leader, on the main road 
 which the Vagabond had tramped as a prisoner the 
 evening before, he felt nothing of the elation of vic 
 tory. They were far from safe yet; rather, in the 
 position of a fox who has escaped being knocked on 
 the head to give the hounds a quarry. Tim and 
 Jimmy voicing their praise, the Vagabond only 
 said: 
 
 "Tricking policemen! Don t slacken speed!" Then 
 he asked: "The horses have had no rations since last 
 night? * 
 
 "No." 
 
 "And Southbridge is fresh ! He ought to outride 
 us in a long run!" 
 
 "I fear so!" 
 
 436 
 
THE VAGABOND 
 
 "And the nearest direct line to Sheridan is to the 
 northeast." 
 
 "But the river the current won t let us cross it!" 
 
 "We must. The pontoons were removed when our 
 brigade fell back, I suppose?" 
 
 "Of course," Jimmy replied. "All I d been think 
 ing of was to save your neck. We expected to be 
 taken." 
 
 Before this, Southbridge had brought his superior 
 force together. As the Federals turned off the road 
 they saw their pursuers approaching at a gallop. 
 
 "How I d like to wait for them!" the Vagabond 
 fairly groaned. "I would, too, if they weren t five 
 times as many as we are, with infantry back of em. 
 Four miles to the river it s at least that! Hm-m! 
 We must make it!" 
 
 Their horses sank deep in the mire and their ber.c 
 effort was little more than a slow trot. Southbridge 
 seemed to be going at double their speed, the while 
 he remained on the road ; but when he, too, tried the 
 field with the Federals tracks for his path, he slack 
 ened. Still, with the urgings of shout and spur, he 
 was gaining. Every trooper saw that over his shoul 
 der, and marvelled what resource of their leader should 
 save them this time. He gave no sign and uttered no 
 word, except to turn his head and, in his cheerful way, 
 to say that they were going fast enough. He did not 
 want winded horses for the crisis. 
 
 Then his keen eye saw a stretch of rising ground 
 nearly in the form of a semicircle enclosing a swamp 
 deeper than that of the immediate region. On the 
 strength of his knowledge of his adversary, he swerved 
 Ms course, and Southbridge, attempting to profit by 
 
 437 
 
THE VAGABOND 
 
 the folly of not taking a straight line of flight, tried the 
 cut-off, with the result that he fell into a morass and 
 some of his troopers were unhorsed, while the Vaga 
 bonds actually increased the distance between them 
 and their pursuers. 
 
 But the new gap became less and less until it was 
 no more than five hundred yards, when the Vagabond 
 saw the muddy, boiling surface of the swollen river. 
 By the fringe of half-submerged willows along its 
 bank, he judged its course and made for a bend where 
 his instinct for topography told him that the current 
 would carry a swimmer to the other side. Then he 
 whispered his spirit into Breaker s ears; then every 
 man of his command drove his steed to the utmost, 
 and the energy which they had reserved actually 
 widened the breach, promising them the time which 
 they needed in order not to be so many helpless tar 
 gets while they crossed. 
 
 No one asked himself whether it was possible to 
 stem that torrent and reach the other side; whether 
 they should not be whirled around like leaves in an 
 eddy, some drowning, some thrown helpless on the 
 bank, prisoners for the taking. Horses as well as 
 riders felt the pressure of flight They sprang in after 
 their leader and they were caught and carried on, but 
 toward the other side, until, with lashings by some 
 and coaxing words by others, hoofs touched earth and 
 dripping flanks broke clear of the water and dashed 
 through the bushes and under their cover with the 
 first sprinkle of bullets from the enemy about their 
 ears. The Vagabond had no doubt that whatever 
 courage or strength could do, Southbridge would. He 
 knew that the pursuers would overtake him before he 
 
 438 
 
THE VAGABOND 
 
 could reach Sheridan if they were allowed to cross. 
 Sending the men with the weakest horses on, he re 
 tained the others, who, knee-deep in the overflow, 
 and poking their rifles through the willows, saw 
 Southbridge himself about to enter the water. He was 
 swinging his sabre. 
 
 "That ll help his horse swim!" piped a waggish 
 trooper, "that and his plume! And oh, mother dear! 
 he s going to get his pretty sash all muddy!" 
 
 "Wait! Wait until they are well in!" the Vaga 
 bond said. "And don t hit their leader if you can 
 help it," for he had suddenly a kindly feeling as well 
 as one of admiration for Southbridge a gallant con 
 sideration that amounted to the opinion that here was 
 too good a man to owe his death to his houndish indis 
 cretion and lack of forethought. Besides, he was 
 grateful to Southbridge ; grateful that he was not the 
 same type of man as Richard Bulwer, or a score of 
 other Confederates whose acumen had met his own 
 with equally keen edge and skill and more than once 
 outwitted him. 
 
 Mercilessly, as war commands in the name of 
 mercy, they dropped the struggling riders into the 
 water until not half a dozen remained. These, with 
 their cursing leader, were borne down-stream and 
 finally to their own bank, where the rest of the force 
 had fallen back to the cover of the willows and begun 
 firing, but not until the rear-guard of the Vagabonds 
 was departing at the run. Undaunted, Southbridge 
 gathered his men and entered the water. This time 
 he succeeded in crossing; and he pursued the Vaga 
 bonds until they were in sight of the columns of 
 smoke from the timbers of the locks of the James 
 
 439 
 
THE VAGABOND 
 
 Canal, and a cavalry patrol was blue oh, such a 
 bright, cheerful blue to those Yankees, who slowed 
 their blown horses and sighed from happiness. But 
 there was no sign of elation on the Vagabond s own 
 face. 
 
 "Old Marcus! Do you think they suspect him?" 
 he asked, in a manner which showed what thought 
 had been uppermost from the beginning. 
 
 "No; not the least bit," Jimmy declared. "No 
 white man could suspect a black man of such intelli 
 gence. He said to tell you his mistress would do 
 nothing." 
 
 "Not a plumb d n thing!" said Tim Booker, 
 fiercely, as much as to say, "Now will you give up 
 that girl?" 
 
 "Nothing!" the Vagabond repeated. He leaned 
 over and patted Breaker s moist neck softly. "Trick 
 ing policemen!" he added, abruptly. 
 
 Then he smiled again, as he saluted the com 
 mander of the patrol. 
 
 44.0 
 
XLVTH 
 
 MAECUS, THE STRATEGIST 
 
 Tim Booker s secret ambition throughout the war 
 had been to have some individual experiences actually 
 as outlandish as those his imagination conceived. This 
 chance came when Sheridan called upon the Vaga 
 bonds for a volunteer to take a message through to 
 Grant. 
 
 "They wouldn t send you on an errand like this, 
 Jimmy Pool," said Tim. "It takes a talker to get 
 through the Confederate lines." And in a suit of 
 jeans, with his pockets full of coffee for bribes, he 
 set out. The prospect of the yarns he could tell on 
 his journey and on his return made him oblivious of 
 the risk he was taking. Were he to fall he was deter 
 mined that it should be with a twinkle in his eye and 
 an artistic whopper on his lips. 
 
 "Soon very soon! Soon very soon!" ran the 
 cadence of the mud-larks after they were ready to 
 move, and they rode over the sodden and devastated 
 land back to Petersburg in that memorable time when 
 the fierce, red-bearded man had all but finished his 
 long march through the heart of the Confederacy and 
 the Army of the Potomac waited on the cavalry s 
 coming to begin the movement that was to end the 
 war. Even a trooper of 65 was not such a tireless 
 
 441 
 
THE VAGABOND 
 
 machine that he did not need oiling and occasional re 
 pairs. Where, in 62, a month for preparation would 
 have been expected, all that the little Irishman asked 
 was time to reshoe the horses and replace equipment 
 and a night s unprovoked sleep for his men. 
 
 Tim Booker, his mission having been amazingly 
 successful, nevertheless met his fellow Vagabonds 
 with a feeling of shame. 
 
 "I m not to blame," he declared, almost piteously. 
 "It s that confounded Confederate river. Before I d 
 seen anybody except negroes and old people I was 
 taken up with the idea of riding. Yes, I, who have 
 seen the world and the eternal hills of California, 
 when I saw a boat somebody wasn t using I got into 
 it and then and there destroyed all my chances of ad 
 venture. I broke an oar, I smashed the bow on a log, 
 and jumped on a floating stump. And there I was 
 on that stump, as helpless to show that I was cut out 
 for chivalrous deeds as a clerk on a high stool. On 
 both sides of that stream was plain infantry, and 
 awful tired infantry at that; but the current must 
 have had Jeb Stuart s soul in it, the way it charged. 
 I couldn t steer that stump. "Where it went, I went. 
 I passed Confederates, lots of them, and when they 
 asked me where I was going, I yelled back that I was 
 marching to the sea, or finding a new way of breaking 
 the blockade. Yes, those were the only answers I 
 could invent. The nervousness of my position sort 
 of dulled my brain. I kept hoping the stump would 
 get caught on a root at a bend, and I d still have a 
 chance to show the metal I was made of. If it did, 
 it pushed off in an ugly kind of way, like a woman 
 that s had her gown stepped on. It would do that, 
 
 442 
 
THE VAGABOND 
 
 and give me another ducking every time I got dried 
 a bit. The water was cold and the wind colder. There 
 I sat munching the coffee-beans O Lord ! what stories 
 I was going to tell the Johnnies of how I got em out 
 of a Yankee general s mess yes, there I sat for 
 twelve hours, till I was landed in the Union lines 
 F. O. B. Why, a silent man, if he d had that stump, 
 could have done the thing as well as I." 
 
 The interval of rest gave the Vagabond an oppor 
 tunity which months of rigorous campaigning had 
 denied him. He took the first train for Lanleyton. 
 As he turned from the road into the drive, he stopped 
 and looked long and steadily at the creation which had 
 made him realize the joy of possessing money that 
 is, the joy of spending it on another. In every detail 
 of outward construction the new house was a counter 
 part of the old; yet nothing could replace the sobriety 
 of age which even fresh paint on a wooden surface 
 cannot entirely conceal. Felicia, who had little 
 dreamed that she would ever take charge of any 
 white-pillared mansion but her own, had found the 
 work the happiest of her life if we except, of course, 
 the nursing of a private of cavalry whose clay pipe 
 had once offended her. 
 
 "I ve worn out your letters studying their direc 
 tions," she said, when he had reassured her of her 
 husband s health, "and I hope I ve got things some 
 thing like you wanted them." 
 
 "Oh, it wouldn t have been possible at all except 
 for you, aunt. You have done so much for me, and I 
 was only a saucy, impudent little beggar that wouldn t 
 believe in you at all at first. All my friends have 
 
 443 
 
THE VAGABOND 
 
 been so kind and loyal that sometimes I think I m 
 quite spoiled." 
 
 "I don t know of anybody who will stand spoiling 
 so well, except the Judge the General, I mean." 
 (When she came to this subject, she lost sight of 
 others.) "Billy, do you think I ought to call hrrn 
 the Judge or the General?" 
 
 Whichever you like better." 
 
 "I think I like the General better while the war 
 lasts, at any rate. There! I m not going to talk 
 about him every minute, if I do think about him every 
 minute. Oh, I ve had a tussle with these negroes! 
 All they do is to sing Miss Yo s praises. There are 
 times when I think that the only thing is to thrash 
 them; but they say she never did that. She had her 
 own way of punishing them by appeals to their shame 
 and pride. How I do admire her the way she ac 
 cepted her responsibility without preaching about it, 
 as John the General, says. If you have any sugges 
 tions, or want any changes, don t hesitate to say so, 
 will you?" 
 
 "The curbstone was a little farther to the left, and 
 there used to be a big rattan settee here on the porch. 
 Jackson (a utility man that he had employed to assist 
 her) can get one. I ll make some notes of orders for 
 him to fill." 
 
 When he entered the drawing-room, he felt a shock 
 which, for his aunt s sake, he tried to conceal. Its 
 resemblance seemed only to make it more unlike that 
 of his memory. The old furniture could not be re 
 produced, only replaced, he warned himself as prep 
 aration for the rest of the interior. 
 
 "Excellent!" he said, sincerely; for it was, consid- 
 444 
 
THE VAGABOND 
 
 ering. Then lie rearranged some of the chairs deftly, 
 recollection or instinct prompting him to put two be 
 fore the fireplace. "There was a little cabinet by that 
 window. They kept one of her grandfather s decora 
 tions and some medals and other heirlooms in it. Of 
 course, that was burned, but possibly they had taken 
 their treasures elsewhere. We ll have Jackson get 
 another cabinet. There was a low Chippendale chair, 
 where she used to sit sometimes when she was read 
 ing or sewing. We must have a chair like it like 
 the one which she was occupying that night when a 
 wounded Federal fell across the threshold into her 
 arms." 
 
 So they went from room to room, he praising Feli 
 cia s kindness and taste, and making suggestions gen 
 tly, with pathetic touches of description, explaining 
 the associations when new articles were to be bought, 
 unconscious of the secret which his manner and his 
 words were betraying. When they stood on the porch 
 and he was ready to go, she said, tenderly : 
 
 "You love her, Billy." 
 
 "I I have money and I have a fancy you know 
 my weakness for fancies and I want to repay her 
 for saving my life, and make such reparation as dollars 
 can for what my country has destroyed. She is not 
 to know that I built it. Remember, it s an old class 
 mate of her father s. I I" then he looked at her 
 pleadingly and cried : "Don t ! Please, don t !" 
 
 Hiding away, he wondered if, after all, he had not 
 done a clumsy thing; if this new Lanleyton overly 
 new would only make the loss of the old harder for 
 her to bear. 
 
 445 
 
THE VAGABOND 
 
 From the moment of hearing that she would do 
 nothing to rescue him, he had felt as he had when he 
 was seven days from camp with only one day s rations 
 left. What a mockery was gold without food! "What 
 a mockery was love such as his when its object would 
 not transcend sectional hatred to save his life ! In his 
 despondency he was stupid, so stupid that it had not 
 once occurred to him that by sending his sabre to her 
 he had made open action by her on his behalf impos 
 sible. Its loss was another thing that set heavily on 
 his heart. He had come to look upon it as the fourth 
 of his loyal familiars, ranking after Tim, Jimmy, and 
 Breaker. Had she given it to some Confederate 
 trooper? or had she kept it as a souvenir to amuse 
 Confederate officers? !N"o; he still believed in her too 
 much to think her capable of that. 
 
 The note that he had written to her distressed him 
 most. His rescue had given it the bathos of the death 
 bed heroics of a puppy recruit who thought that he 
 was dying, only to find himself classed by the surgeon 
 among the "not serious." Over-exertion contributed 
 to a distorted view which the thoughts of the new 
 Lanleyton had begotten. He felt that he had only 
 three things to be thankful for, his friends and his 
 good horse and the certainty that great activity was 
 near at hand. He half wished that the war might 
 last while he lasted. He now dreaded the time when 
 it should be over; when under the impulsion of his 
 promise and his passion he should once more seek her 
 out. Even "I shall wait! I shall hope!" became a 
 mockery; and "I shall love you forever" had the flavor 
 of bitterness which only truth and ashes can give. 
 
 That night he had two hours sleep. The next day 
 446 
 
THE VAGABOND 
 
 lie was a part of the final campaign of the Civil "War, 
 which was the very apotheosis of the cavalry s 
 skill and versatility and of the personality of the little 
 Irishman who, as in primitive days before repeating 
 rifles and great combinations, could change the face 
 of battle by his presence. The infantry-man s cry of 
 "Who ever saw a dead cavalry-man?" that rose about 
 every horseman at the beginning of the war, was not 
 heard from the numerous soldiery which held thirty 
 miles of works and all winter had scowled at an enemy 
 from two to five hundred yards away. Instead, they 
 shouted their plaudits for the bully boys who had 
 made good all their promises. 
 
 They needed no telling to know what Sheridan s 
 object was. He was going to make a turning move 
 ment on the extreme left, while they who had waited 
 so long were still to hug the enemy s line as if it were 
 a beggar s crust of bread, and wherever Uncle Robert 
 gave ground to snap up the advantage and greedily 
 maintain it. The Vagabond had a moment s talk in 
 passing with his uncle, a hand-grasp with that great 
 corps commander, Huested "the Superb," as his men 
 called him, whose fame every defeat and every vic 
 tory brightened. So often in the first year of the war 
 had the soldiers of the Army of the Potomac talked of 
 entering Richmond, so far had Richmond seemed in 
 the second, so much farther in the third, that, the 
 great hope on the point of fulfilment, from supersti 
 tious awe they almost feared to speak their belief. 
 
 The deserters continually slipping across the narrow 
 zone that separated the armies all told the same story 
 of a lost cause. It was as plain to the teamster as 
 to Grant that when the rains had ceased, when artil- 
 
 447 
 
THE .VAGABOND 
 
 lery and wagons could be moved, Eichmond must be 
 abandoned; and, to Grant, at least, it was plain that 
 this consummation was near at hand; that an arm of 
 human flesh and horse-flesh must be thrown across the 
 path of the retreat and prevent the union of Lee s and 
 Johnston s forces. That arm was Sheridan, and the 
 Vagabond s company happened to be one of the fin 
 gers feeling the way before they should fall back on 
 the palm and the knuckles shoot forward for the last 
 killing blow, in the battle of Five Forks, where des 
 peration ran high on both sides and the men received 
 and gave fire as if bullets were sugar pellets. This 
 was the Confederates final effort to cut their way out, 
 the swan song of four years struggle. They expected 
 defeat, and made the cost as great as they could. 
 Death was counted a kindly messenger snatching 
 them from the picture of their rifles stacked in a con- 
 qneror s camp. 
 
 But the Federals were not thinking of the glory 
 of that approaching hour and the superfluous func 
 tion such is the nature of soldiers drawn from farm 
 and shop by principle and then tempered by rough 
 practice. They were thinking that they might be 
 home for the spring ploughing, or back at the forge 
 before the honeysuckle on the village porches was in 
 bloom. They were thinking of the long life stretch 
 ing before them, with the memory of gallant deeds 
 to give graceful passage of time; and in the enthusi 
 asm of the picture they faced death with more aban 
 don than ever before. The very nearness of peace 
 gave them the strength for the final thrust which 
 should bring a sorry business to an end. The sweet 
 heart under the rose-bush, the child (born in its 
 
 448 
 
THE VAGABOND 
 
 father s absence) on the knee, or the grave and 
 quick ! 
 
 Sometimes the harder won that realization is, the 
 more it belies florid anticipation. When the blue ants 
 swarmed from their hills over the unoccupied breast 
 works which had bristled with death a few hours be 
 fore, they were not plunged at all into the frolicking 
 triumph which they had promised themselves in the 
 fatuous days before the first Bull Run, and even in 
 the Peninsula. The fact itself was too deep a triumph 
 to need banners or red fire. A riot of joy would have 
 been out of place now; making sport of a brother s 
 grief, or the grief of an enemy whose virtues, by dint 
 of bloodshed, had made him once more kin. They 
 marched on in chase of the shattered Confederacy, 
 which, with the path to Johnston closed, kept on mov 
 ing and striking back, not spitefully, but fitfully, as a 
 matter of course, leaving dead men, tired men, 
 sick men, and the debris of war in its wake, until, at 
 Appomattox, Grant wrote out the simple, eloquent 
 terms of surrender, and Lee signed them, and rode 
 back to his broken army, which paid him the greatest 
 tribute a soldier of that war received by cheering him 
 as heartily with the last breath of State sovereignty 
 as it had in the dawn of the struggle with the lusty 
 voice of the stored energy of long peace and the prom 
 ise of separate nationality. 
 
 The Vagabond s company had seen the first white 
 flag raised, and lowered their carbines, knowing that 
 they had fired their last shot. With the vanguard 
 he had ridden into the field of gray and butternut rags 
 that covered hearts as noble in failure as they were 
 brave in battle, with sabres that had cut flesh and 
 
 44:9 
 
THE VAGABOND 
 
 parried steel sheathed in harmony, not to be drawn 
 again except in a common cause. Whoever had felt 
 any malice lost it in the hand-grasp of a foe who did 
 not sulk over the inevitable. His men chatted with 
 Stuart s men as if they had risen from the whist-table 
 instead of from four years carnage. His own talk 
 was absently given, for the war was over in a double 
 sense for him. Personally, the realization was ashes 
 where the anticipation had been flame. That which 
 he had waited for, now that he had it, seemed air in 
 his grasp. The great day at hand, he had not the 
 courage to doubt her answer. He concluded that he 
 would not return to California. Tim and Jimmy 
 should have that vanity, his mine, and he would 
 sever himself from the association that it must ever call 
 to mind, and turn his face to new ledges and follow his 
 vagabondish fancy wherever it called, letting to-mor 
 row take care of itself and burying yesterdays in the 
 change and excitement of to-day. No! He would 
 not torture himself again with the sight of her. He 
 would not have the last treasured glimpse that of dis 
 dain; rather let it be that of her smile as they had 
 parted after her impulse had carried her along the 
 road in his company; or of her face transfixed with 
 purpose when she denied his identity in order to save 
 his life. 
 
 While his thoughts in the midst of rejoicing ran 
 thus, his friends, who had known little of the truth, 
 who had thought of this girl as the cause of his 
 escapades, for his sake, as they understood it, were 
 withholding a secret that would have made hope 
 mount in song to his temples. A glimpse of a black 
 face going in and out among the holiday crowd of 
 
 450 
 
THE VAGABOND 
 
 soldiery made him oblivious of all save one idea. If 
 Marcus Aurelius were here, then his mistress must be 
 also. Never had the Vagabond seen him looking so 
 miserable and flustered. Never had he seen in his 
 eyes before the latent savagery of Africa; for the old 
 man was in a tempest of rage and dismay. 
 
 "Yo se de man Fse been lookin fur in dis hyah 
 mess o foolishness. Now s yo chance, an yo am got 
 any time t lose. To Gord, Fse shivered an lied; 
 Pse been sassed by fiel -han s; Fse rid a mule tell I 
 wuz raw; Fse brekfusted on faith, dined on hope, 
 an supped on char ty, an slep in a mud-hole or hang- 
 in t a peg, an Fse been glad t do it dat s a sar- 
 vant s duty. I se been glad t do it, seh, ^long s de 
 white fo ks play dyah part. I se stuck t my missus 
 f rough de war, but I ll nuver do it now, nuver, nuver, 
 nuver!" he protested, vigorously, as if reassuring him 
 self. "She done gwine wid Marse Soufbridge. He s 
 not give up. He s gwine way t Mexico an heath n 
 countries t keep on fightin fur fightin s sake. He s 
 a-ridin Folly, an she s in a ole ker ige dey s out 
 dyah on de road a-gwine t perdition! 
 
 " Fo Gord, don blame me ! Fse done all a sarvunt 
 could. Look hyah, says I, we ain licked; no, seh 
 an we ain , Mistah Yankee (this to the Vagabond). 
 How can we be licked when Marse Robert come rid- 
 in back from dat are meetin wid dat man Grant a- 
 lookin jes ez cahm ez uver, jes ez ef he won ? No, 
 seh, yo can n lick Marse Robert. He jes stop dis 
 war cause he t ink de foolishness gwine far nuff an 
 cause he show de Yanks dat one Confed rate can lick 
 th ee Yanks an de trubble is he can n quite lick fo . 
 An ; Missy, I says, Marcus he done he duty ; yo do 
 
 451 
 
THE VAGABOND 
 
 yo se. Yo duty s t go back t Lanleyton an bull a 
 new house an look arfter de fool niggers dat s foolish- 
 er n uver now dey s got dyah heads full o Yankee 
 notions. De Yankees can n tek yo Ian way from 
 yo . Dat s property, an property s property. It s yo 
 ancestahs property; it s yo duty. And she says, 
 Dyah ain no mo Lanleyton; dyah am no mo Fir- 
 ginia. I m an outcas who goes whither de win 
 bloweth. " 
 
 "But the house can be rebuilt," suggested the 
 Vagabond, knowing that Marcus would know if his 
 mistress had heard of the new one. 
 
 The old man s manner quite disabused him on that 
 score. 
 
 "I tell her dat. To Gord, I don t ink she s in her 
 right min . I tell her she an I mus part ef she s 
 gwine t be so foolish, an she say, Go, Marcus; yo se 
 free; dyah s no reason why yo should stay. Yo 
 frien s, de Yankees, mek yo free. Dat mos mek 
 me melt; but my duty sen me hyah. Now s yo 
 chance, yo las chance. Yo go t her an maybe, 
 maybe yo kin save her. Ef yo don go, she gwine 
 do some n she al ays be sorry fur, cause she s jes all 
 flustahed out her senses. She a-gwine t marry dat 
 are man Soufbridge cause he fit on her side, an cause 
 she done prumise him an ansah arfter de war. It s yo 
 las chance. Yo go t her an don yo mince mattahs 
 an say, By yo will. 
 
 "Yo se a Yank, an Soufbridge s a Confed rate. 
 Tain. dat ; it s de man, an yo se my man. Yo hit 
 dat Soufbridge tween de eyes, an den tek im down 
 in de mud an sit on im a while. Twill do im good; 
 twill teach im dat when Marse Robert say de war s 
 
 452 
 
THE VAGABOND 
 
 over, de fightin time s over, too. Jes a good thrash- 
 in t tek im out o de pouts. An yo jes tu n her 
 ker ige roun an tek her straight back t Lanleyton, 
 jes ez ef yo hed a right to, widout doin anyt ing 
 cept t smile yo knows how t smile cept t smile 
 at her fool talk!" 
 
 "When when she did nothing to save me! Mar 
 cus, you don t understand !" the Vagabond said. 
 
 "Nuttin t save yo ! Dat s what she made me tell 
 fo ks so yo wouldn do no mo foolishness. Nuttin* 
 t save yo ! I tol dem lieutenants dat she said t say 
 she done nuttin . Dat s like fool sowgers! All dey 
 knows is t bey orders. Yo d have t wink like a barn 
 door a-op nin fo dey d tek a hint. Nuttin t save 
 yo ! She did it all. Yo fool note! Yo los yo 
 senses. To de Lawd, dese white fo ks but I can n* 
 go runnin on in any mo talk. Yo let me have one 
 o yo hawses. Yo come long; come long!" 
 
 So they set off together. 
 
 453 
 
A CHOICE OF FUTURES 
 
 Having passed the main body of the Confederates, 
 they proceeded at a rapid pace along the road Marcus 
 had indicated. 
 
 "Dey ain no time t be los , cause dat are man 
 Soufbridge mout get de fus parson he fin an have 
 it all over fo Missy Yo blow col . I don know, I 
 don know. I spec dat I ll go wid her anyhow. She s 
 all dat s lef o de fam ly, an I b longs t de fam ly." 
 
 "Have you heard anything from Lanleyton lately?" 
 The Vagabond s question was significant of the fear 
 still running in his mind. 
 
 "Hyahed anyt ing? Good Lawd, what is dyah t 
 hyah? Ev yt ing s bu n down. Yo don hyah any 
 t ing from de middle o de Dead Sea! I reckon not." 
 
 This reassurance left no doubt that she knew noth 
 ing of the new house ; for more than ever he felt that 
 if she were to be his, it must be for himself alone. His 
 love must be returned with love as single-minded, else 
 it were better that each go his way; and in that event 
 a sense of indebtedness to him would be torture for 
 her. No expedient, no bribe, no false persuasion, only 
 one grand, enduring passion could justify the union 
 of their natures ; that for her sake as well as his ; that 
 in the name of his fancy, which preferred starvation 
 to a morsel. 
 
 454 
 
THE VAGABOND 
 
 This new condition of saving her from impetuous 
 folly regardless of whether she was to be his or an 
 other s was a part with the surprises that had played 
 havoc with all his plans where she was concerned. A 
 Union officer going to propose to a Confederate girl 
 whom he had met only once was more in keeping with 
 the formalities than a Union officer going as a coun 
 sellor to reason with a Confederate girl whom defeat 
 and care and hatred of his side had made reckless. 
 Why should he interfere against Southbridge? Might 
 she not love him after all? His only justifiable excuse 
 for the journey was to save her from a man of violent 
 passions and prejudices, who would lead her into 
 strange lands and strange brawls and grief and mis 
 fortune; to assure her the time and rest required for 
 clear judgment. But how? Whatever his advice, 
 would not the sum of it be, in her ears, "You had bet 
 ter go back to your home which we burned, and your 
 lands which we kindly devastated for you!" Was it 
 within the range of feminine humility for her to listen 
 to him at all ? How complex this new duty beside the 
 simple task he had set for himself through the grind 
 ing years of warfare, when this happy day of peace 
 should come! If once a stare had tongue-tied him, 
 why not now, with a better cause? 
 
 When, from the crest of a knoll, they saw a rickety 
 carriage, with a man riding beside it, and he heard 
 Marcus s delighted words of recognition whispered in 
 his ear, he concluded that, above all, he was not so 
 made as to shine as a counsellor of dour mien. 
 
 "Praise de Lawd! Yo se got yo head out o de 
 vinegar bar l ! I wuz worrited. Yo an her don look 
 right less yo smile an she ain smile fur months. 
 
 455 
 
THE VAGABOND 
 
 Yo jes* look at her, de way yo can, yo scrumptious 
 devil of a Yankee, yo !" 
 
 "Follow; I ll lead/ 7 the Vagabond said, riding on. 
 
 He felt already quite relieved, with all his pros and 
 cons behind him. He was going into action; and 
 action always blessed him with good-humor and self- 
 possession. 
 
 Looking over his shoulder on hearing horsemen ap 
 proach, Southbridge recognized his old enemy. They 
 were on opposite sides of the road, Southbridge abreast 
 of the carriage, the Vagabond twenty yards away. 
 
 "Good-morning!" said the new-comer, pleasantly; 
 and the Confederate made no reply except a glare. 
 All his hatred of this Yankee was wrapped up with 
 his love of the woman whom he thought was now his. 
 The Vagabond urged his horse forward until he could 
 look under the tattered carriage-cover at her face. 
 Her little cry of surprise was followed by the angry 
 call: "Go back, or I ll shoot you dead!" and he looked 
 up into the muzzle of Southbridge s revolver. 
 
 "I fought you once in the open and gave you back 
 your sabre," the Vagabond returned. "A second 
 time, I directed my men not to fire on you, as you 
 were swimming a river. I have something to say to 
 Miss Lanley. If you wish to kill me, go ahead!" 
 
 "No, no, Jefferson," she said, deprecatingly. "It is 
 not worth while, really." 
 
 Southbridge lowered his weapon. The Vagabond 
 moved forward till his spur touched the forward wheel 
 of the carriage, which the driver had stopped. When 
 again he glanced at Volilla he still had the fear of her 
 power to silence him with a look or a word. Though 
 her riding-habit was threadbare, she had that innate 
 
 456 
 
THE VAGABOND 
 
 distinction of person which made her always seem 
 well dressed; her adorable hair, arranged without a 
 mirror, paid a compliment to her deft fingers which a 
 lady s-maid might have envied. He saw in her eyes 
 only the indifference and the pride of despair. She 
 had been one who believed in the South s invincibility 
 to the last moment. She was still dazed by the mis 
 fortune and overcome with the reaction from the long 
 strain. Southbridge s offer to take her away from the 
 heart-breaking scene of her country s undoing, and his 
 words of contempt for surrendering as long as there 
 was a rifle left and a mountain-fastness for a covert, 
 had been sweet to her ears. 
 
 "I have come, you see, as I said I would when the 
 war was over, but on a different basis than I ex 
 pected," the Vagabond said. "I have come to find 
 that perhaps I am not the only one who has made a 
 journey on impulse." 
 
 There his sentence was cut short by the stinging 
 blow of Southbridge s glove across the face. A red 
 welt was rising on his cheek. He could feel his flesh 
 quivering as it did when he was waiting under fire 
 for orders to charge. 
 
 "The time for passion has passed. Please hear me 
 out," he started to say, and then raised his hand in 
 time to receive the second blow on its back. 
 
 "As you wish," he replied. "Not here, I hope." 
 He nodded toward Volilla. 
 
 "Yonder," said Southbridge. "Behind that knoll." 
 
 "Not that! Oh, not that!" but she saw how 
 useless was her protest, by a glance at their flushed 
 faces. Then she looked at the Vagabond alone. "Am 
 I to be always under obligations to you? I must I 
 
 457 
 
THE VAGABOND 
 
 must ask a Yankee please don t kill him! Please 
 only disarm him!" 
 
 To one this meant that she was interested in the 
 safety of the other alone. To the other it was a whirl 
 ing dagger boring into the core of his pride. 
 
 "You can always command me," said the Vaga 
 bond. "While you wait, I ask you to think of your 
 grandfather s, your father s, Kichard Bulwer s, your 
 aunt s opinion of what you are about to do." 
 
 Side by side, as if they were friends on a morning 
 jaunt, the pair rode across the fields. 
 
 "Not with the horses, this time," said the Federal, 
 as he threw his foot over the saddle. "I may do as I 
 will with myself, but I have no right to endanger the 
 life of one who has served me so well, now that peace 
 is here. And yours ? He, too, is no part of our 
 quarrel." 
 
 "No. I had no idea of risking Folly," said the 
 Confederate. 
 
 He dismounted and removed his coat and hat, while 
 the Vagabond did the same. Then they unbuckled 
 their belts and unsheathed their sabres. The harmony 
 of their movements incidental to the swift and essential 
 preparation seemed part of a rehearsed performance. 
 But a sight of their faces would have destroyed any 
 such illusion. Southbridge s was mottled with the 
 purple of his anger and the distended veins flickered 
 with the pounding of his heart. Reason against such 
 a rage as his was like turning a siphon on a furnace. 
 The man before him stood for the North which had 
 beaten down the South as relentlessly, if as slowly, as 
 the turning of a screw; stood for that moment ever 
 burning in his memory when he had been disarmed 
 
 458 
 
THE VAGABOND 
 
 jn front of the Lanley house, and all the mockeries 
 which hated lips had framed sang in his ears. Vic 
 tory would wipe out the stain on his own escutcheon; 
 it would atone for his country s defeat and send him 
 forth to new fields of adventure with a boaster s con 
 fidence. 
 
 This time the Vagabond was not smiling. He was 
 disgusted and bitter. All day his heart had been 
 beating with good wishes for every boy in gray. He 
 had gloried over the prospect of the return of hun 
 dreds of thousands of men to earning and building 
 instead of spending and fighting. He had wished that 
 his mine was large enough to give every idle one a 
 place. It was well that he was tired of the business 
 of killing his fellow-men ; well, in order that he might 
 have the courage to risk his own life and so allow his 
 adversary to ride away to a wedding with the girl of 
 his heart. 
 
 "This is not of my doing," he said, as they lifted 
 their blades in salute in signal of readiness. 
 
 "No feints will avail you now!" Southbridge cried; 
 and the Vagabond s heart, if not his set lips, an 
 swered : "I will not wait on that !" 
 
 This time he was not in the mood to play for his 
 opening. He sprang to meet Southbridge s circling 
 cut and the two sabres rang dully with the contact 
 of edge against edge. Flashes and quivering gleams 
 played above them as they moved around each other, 
 striking more in desperation than in skill, neither of 
 fering to the other the chance of a thrust in their 
 mad contest of strength and will. Every blow, had it 
 not been parried, could have split the heads which 
 were fenced in by the snapping lights from the steeL 
 
 459 
 
THE VAGABOND 
 
 The Vagabond could see that the first shoots of grass 
 were carpeting the knoll with green; the sky was a 
 soft blue; near by was a peach-tree in blossom. He 
 thought of his mountain, his mine, and the girl; of 
 work yet to be done ; of obstacles yet to be overcome ; 
 of the joy of living and doing. Of a sudden, full- 
 winged illusion whispered to him that he was fighting 
 for the place in her heart that he craved ; of a sudden, 
 his rain of blows became a torrent. The might of 
 triumphant fancy, giving strength to a right arm, bore 
 Southbridge to his knee and left him trembling with 
 exhaustion and shame, his sabre once more his ene 
 my s trophy. He reached for his revolver, as if he 
 would do murder, and found his wrist in a vise. 
 
 "That is unworthy of you," said the Vagabond. 
 "You have lost. You are weary ill, perhaps think 
 what you are doing!" 
 
 "No I I did not mean to shoot." 
 
 The Vagabond gave back the sabre. He offered his 
 hand; but Southbridge shook his head. 
 
 "I can t! I can t!" 
 
 "I m sorry," said the Vagabond. "I m sorry I had 
 to disarm you." 
 
 "You ve won," Southbridge rejoined, after he had 
 put on his coat. "Please take her horse back. I ll 
 I ll cut across lots on foot." 
 
 "No, please. What does it count if I have won? 
 Is that any argument? Let us return together, and 
 continue the discussion where we left it off. She 
 need not know which was beaten." 
 
 So they rode back as if they were friends returning 
 from their jaunt, Southbridge with his head bowed, 
 and the Vagabond looking straight ahead. 
 
 460 
 
THE VAGABOND 
 
 "I knew that you would win you always win ! 
 That s the horror of you!" Volilla said. "I I knew 
 there was no danger." But her white face belied her 
 confidence. 
 
 "Have you considered?" the Vagabond asked. 
 
 "Yes. My duty has come to me in a flash, as it 
 often does. I want you to understand both to un 
 derstand that your brutal duel has nothing to do 
 with my decision. Jefferson, the Yankees cannot 
 take away our lands or our pride and our responsi 
 bilities. Our slaves, our old house-servants they 
 may be free, but I know they will not give us up. 
 They need us ! Virginia is ours ! Lanleyton is mine ! 
 I am going back to it. Your duty, too, is to your 
 people and your State. It is no time to think of what 
 you propose." 
 
 "You are going back with him ?" said Southbridge, 
 steadily, nodding toward the Vagabond. 
 
 "Alone ; with you, or with both. One cannot always 
 choose his companions on a journey. I shall have to 
 depend upon the enemy for transportation. They 
 have everything. When I get to Lanleyton, though, 
 that is my castle, and I can dispense with escorts. If 
 an outbuilding remains, I can live in that. If not, 
 then with the Bulwers. I shall try to meet the debts - 
 I will stick to my guns. I will not give up Lanley 
 ton!" 
 
 "Both!" Southbridge threw out the word with a 
 full breath of disgust. Dismounting from Folly, he 
 handed the reins to Marcus. "I bow the knee to no 
 conqueror," he added. "I m not going to throw in 
 my lot with a subject race!" 
 
 "We are not conquerors. We " 
 
 461 
 
THE VAGABOND 
 
 "Worse 1" cut in Southbridge. Then his old, florid 
 politeness returned. He lifted his frayed hat with its 
 bedraggled feather and swept the ground. Setting it 
 back on his head, he bowed to the Vagabond. 
 
 "Good-morning!" he said, nonchalantly. 
 
 Up the road he strode, on his way to that career 
 which ended in a Central American revolution. 
 
 462 
 
li 
 
 BACK TO LANLEYTOIC 
 
 In silence both watched the stalwart figure, whose 
 bearing seemed to express the nature of the man, until 
 it was out of sight. Then, some strange diffidence 
 would not permit him to look at her. He patted 
 Breaker s neck, as he sought for words, while she re 
 lieved the awkward silence by saying, naturally: 
 
 "I ll ride Folly, driver. Put on my saddle," which 
 lay on the box. 
 
 "You needn t step into the road. You can mount 
 where you are/ 7 the Vagabond interposed. He pulled 
 down the carriage-top and the driver swung Folly s 
 flank against the wheel. 
 
 "A little dressing wouldn t be amiss, though this 
 has the virtue of being fresh," and she stuck out the 
 tip of a mud-covered boot. "I ll endeavor to be 
 good-natured, if you ll only promise not to talk of 
 the past." She smiled wanly. "There," pointing to 
 the seat, "that s all the baggage I have. Your sol 
 diers got the rest." He laid his hand on a long parcel 
 done up in paper, and felt the curving brass of a 
 sabre s guard through the wrapping. "As it s yours, 
 you might as well keep it," she said, disinterestedly. 
 "I really don t want a trophy that s been dipped in 
 the blood of our oh, pardon ! We re not to think of 
 the past. For my part, I must not, or I fear I would 
 put the whip to Folly and fly from duty." 
 
 Thus, with her concluding words, she lamed and 
 463 
 
THE VAGABOND 
 
 blinded the joy that her first gave him. On the point 
 of opening the package, he desisted, and laid it across 
 his saddle-horn, as if it were no more than a stick of 
 wood and not his living blade. He wanted to ask her 
 if she had received his note; he wanted, there and 
 then, to open the flood-gates of his affection as he had 
 planned. Her manner forbade. It was that of a 
 woman in distress trying to be cheerful to a stranger, 
 and nothing more. 
 
 "You will drive on as fast as you can, and overtake 
 Colonel Southbridge," she said to the driver. "It was 
 he who got the carriage, and he may need it. Cer 
 tainly, he will need his saddle." 
 
 The driver nodded, and the old vehicle creaked, and 
 began careening through the mud. 
 
 As they turned their horses heads to the east, Mar 
 cus, who, fearing lest his presence should be preju 
 dicial, had watched the progress of events from a dis 
 tance, came riding toward them. 
 
 "Missy! Missy!" came chokingly from his lips, 
 while the tears flowed. "Missy! Missy! I d come! 
 Fd come! I couldn t he ped it!" he said, as he fell 
 in behind them. "I se so glad, so glad! Oh, Missy, 
 Missy!" 
 
 Though within a few miles of the two armies, they 
 had the road to themselves, except for straggling Con 
 federates who had not waited on formality to start for 
 home. When the Vagabond looked toward her, out 
 of the tail of his eye, she was, on her part, looking 
 straight ahead, seemingly as unconscious of his pres 
 ence as he was conscious of hers. 
 
 "Folly is in marvellously good condition," he re 
 marked, at length. 
 
 464 
 
THE VAGABOND 
 
 "Yes. That s the one thing I ve got to be thankful 
 for. He s the greatest veteran of all." She patted his 
 neck, and one ear wagged back and he champed his 
 bits in return. "Your horse seems to have been 
 equally fortunate." 
 
 "Oh, he s been on the winning side. He s had an 
 easier time." 
 
 "But that s the war! Let us not start to talk of 
 that, please," she rejoined; "please!" she repeated, 
 almost abjectly. 
 
 "Pardon!" 
 
 Then silence, except for the plunk of the hoofs in 
 mud and a mumbling from Marcus s lips: 
 
 "She s jes a little da k, an 7 he s fair an he s all 
 hones all de way f rough, an she s all gentleness an 
 pride; an he s jes a ha f a head taller n her my! 
 dey s jes de mos scrumptious couple! Ef I can see 
 em mek it up an a new house built, an I can op n 
 de dinin -room doahs an nounce dinnah like I did in 
 de ole days, I se ready t drop dead, fur I ll be in 
 heaven already." 
 
 The Vagabond continued to glance at her now and 
 then to make sure of the reality. Her very presence 
 seemed to fill the erstwhile empty cup of his spirits 
 to brimming. All his fancies returned in the luxury 
 of imagined fulfilment, even to the great house and 
 the broad acres and "ours !" 
 
 "Peace means that I am going back to the mine," 
 he said, as if she were truly interested in his affairs. 
 "You can t imagine how much better I like that. 
 Breaker here will be treated as if he were heir to a 
 throne. I m going to take all the good fellows in my 
 company that haven t positions at home, out with me. 
 
 465 
 
THE VAGABOND 
 
 I want to see every man of them doing well. There ll 
 be many changes. Things haven t run just as they 
 might while I was away. Once they re going well, 
 we ll have to see Europe Jimmy, Tim, and I, I 
 mean we can t take you, Breaker. You couldn t 
 read the guide-books. Think of itl I m twenty-five 
 years old, and I have seen scarcely anything of the 
 world." 
 
 "It is nice to have money," she replied, censori 
 ously; "but there are other things." 
 
 "Yes, there is mercy, justice, goodness, health, 
 beauty, happiness, and youth. Money means to me 
 that I can see a new place. Money means that you 
 can give happiness to someone whose happiness makes 
 yours. It means duty. To the North, at this mo 
 ment, it should mean that, above all things. We 
 fought to make you stay in the family, and now we 
 should help to rebuild your altars." 
 
 "There is plenty of sentiment in Boston, they say," 
 she rejoined. "What a fine fire our house made ! But 
 we are coming back to the war. Is it fair for you to 
 explain? Would you offer balm on the tip of the 
 blade that made the wound? I I m not expected to 
 say that, though." 
 
 "When our great President was at City Point less 
 than a month ago, it seemed as if he had every reason 
 for elation. The war was as good as over. His vic 
 tory was won. He is the idol of the people. Yet 
 everyone remarked how sad he was. He was not 
 thinking of triumph. He was thinking of the cost in 
 blood; of the greater work yet before him; of making 
 the country whole again Svith malice toward none 
 and charity for all. 
 
 466 
 
THE VAGABOND 
 
 "Charity!" she repeated, her voice sounding like a 
 distant bell. "Charity for Virginia!" 
 
 They reached the crest of a little hill, and before 
 them, with Appomattox Court House for its centre, 
 were the two armies. On the side toward them the 
 field was the subdued tone of gray and butternut and 
 the earth itself ; the farther side was blue, and in the 
 centre, the zone across which only death and pris 
 oners had been exchanged had given place to a med 
 ley in common ecstasy over the end. She kept to his 
 side, making no comment, let alone protest, as they 
 threaded their way through the maze of the road, 
 foot-soldiers and wagon-drivers making room for a 
 beautiful woman who rode as grandly as Uncle Rob 
 ert. When they came to the park of artillery and 
 the long lines of stacked rifles, which were the only 
 booty of a great war for a principle, he said : 
 
 "You must not look at that!" 
 
 But of course she did, womanlike. The sight of 
 this outward show of defeat, to his surprise, did not 
 seem to depress her. She drew rein and surveyed it 
 from end to end with the first real smile on her face 
 that he had seen for three years. 
 
 "This is all all that your millions of Yankees 
 have taken?" she said, mockingly, as she glanced up 
 at him. "See how clean their rifles and guns are! 
 Then look at them themselves ! Bent old men and un 
 developed boys, in their rags, unfed, never paid! 
 Look at your men! Good shoes, good clothes, well 
 fed and paid ! It took so many of you to whip so few 
 of us! I am very proud of my country! I would 
 rather have lost all and served on this side than on 
 yours. But come, Folly, we are on the war again." 
 
THE VAGABOND 
 
 In the Union lines they heard the same talk as they 
 had in the Confederate of home and its concerns. 
 There was little of the professional lingering over de 
 tails of a regular force, with barrack life before them. 
 Two great, skilful armies would melt away into indus 
 try, and where to-day were reveille and taps, to-mor 
 row would be only the calls of individual will. The 
 officers who had learned how to lead while in the hey 
 day of youth were to take part in another and a greater 
 conquest, the peaceful one of the material resources of 
 an undivided country. 
 
 Wherever Volilla went there was a pathway of si 
 lence. a Shut up, boys! A lady!" the voices sang out 
 in a warning, which the worst rowdy obeyed with a 
 spirit he perhaps had never shown in saluting the 
 commanding general himself. With caps in hand 
 and bowed heads they waited for her to pass. 
 
 The Vagabond led her to the spot where his own 
 company was resting. 
 
 "If you ll wait here," he said, "I ll see what can be 
 done about hastening you on your journey." 
 
 In his absence, Tim Booker, turned gallant, ar 
 ranged a chair out of saddles for her and insisted on 
 swathing her skirts in blankets, which he did with a 
 skill and confidence that was the envy of poor Jimmy 
 Pool, who was helpless in the presence of any woman 
 except his old mother. In this position she was served 
 with a plate of soldiers fare and coffee in a tin cup. 
 
 "Coffee! Coffee real coffee!" she said; and 
 smiled her thanks in a way that made Timothy ready 
 to take orders from her for all time. "You see, the 
 blockade kept it away from us. It is so good!" 
 
 "That s about the only mess we ve got left. We 
 468 
 
THE VAGABOND 
 
 gave the rest to Fitz Lee s men this morning. How 
 in thunder the Johnnies kept on fighting without 
 coffee beats me. Only way I can explain it is that 
 they chewed enough tobacco to make up for it. To 
 bacco chewing s a bad habit, but it s done a lot for 
 American courage in this war. I always put in a fresh 
 cud when we started on a charge ; kept it on my sabre- 
 hand side, too. Once, when I didn t, I got into a 
 peck of trouble. I ll tell you how it was." 
 
 Thereupon, this villain, his imagination flowing as 
 fast as his tongue could bear the words, launched into 
 a tale of how a small Confederate had outplayed him 
 in every particular and he was rescued only by the 
 arrival of the rest of the company. 
 
 "I d like to see that little fellow just once more," 
 Tim mused. 
 
 "Do you bear him malice?" she asked. 
 
 "Malice? Me? I want to shake his hand. He s 
 just the kind of a man we need out at our mine. Good 
 men are scarce. The best way to find em is in a fight, 
 and we ve found an army of em over there." 
 
 Jimmy Pool, who had been suffering in the back 
 ground, now advanced. He did not know exactly 
 what he ought to do, but, on consideration, he stiffened 
 and saluted. 
 
 "Miss," he said, "that s right right, hat and boots. 
 We feel like it was a Thanksgiving dinner where we 
 had patched up the family quarrel; and when the 
 men that did the fighting feel that way, the rest of 
 the country ought to. I hope you ll excuse us for 
 not looking very trim, and not being shaved, or any 
 thing decent. If we d known you were coming, we d 
 Lad boots and saddles, at any rate. I m making an 
 
 469 
 
THE YAGABOOT) 
 
 excuse for every man in the company. They all feel 
 like me a little embarrassed." 
 
 Indeed, the men, instead of staring, had drawn 
 away from the group, stroking their stubbly chins. 
 
 "You see, we re going home, besides and that 
 seeming too good to be true makes us all a little un 
 certain of whether we are awake or dreaming/ 7 
 Timothy continued. "My home is almost anywhere 
 in sight of the eternal hills of California. The first 
 time I ever saw the Sierras I took off my hat and 
 said: Tim Booker, you ve found your everlasting 
 earthly home, and the good Lord needn t pass you 
 on to Paradise with an intention of beautifying your 
 surroundings. I didn t expect that I would ever see 
 them again, but I kept hoping I would just for the 
 pleasure of it. It isn t that we ve won battles that 
 makes us so happy, it s the fact that we can be our 
 selves again." 
 
 Meanwhile, the Vagabond, hastening toward the 
 head-quarters of his brigade, came face to face with 
 Richard Bulwer. Though his garments were thread 
 bare, multi-patched, and lacking any insignia of rank, 
 the Virginian still had that air of quiet distinction 
 which nothing could efface. Without waiting on 
 ceremony, the Vagabond seized his hand, and said : 
 
 "I ve thought ever since that afternoon we met 
 on the porch of Lanleyton that when the war was over 
 you and I could be friends that we understood each 
 other. Some day you will see that this is your vic 
 tory as much as ours, and possibly your glory even 
 more than ours." 
 
 "It isn t far from Washington to Richmond, and 
 470 
 
THE VAGABOND 
 
 it took you four years to make the journey," Bulwer 
 replied. "That is some satisfaction in this trying 
 hour. As I read the Constitution, it was the United 
 States are. Now it is the United States is by the de 
 cision of a court from which there is no appeal 
 that of war. I hope that I may serve the undivided 
 country, which still includes the land of my fathers, 
 as faithfully as I served the Confederacy. There 
 is work so much work to be done !" Here he threw 
 off all reserve and seemed to share the Vagabond s 
 enthusiasm. "And there is no one whom I would 
 rather meet than you. You stand for an idea which 
 the war has made me appreciate. I have often 
 thought of you and what you said of the fascination 
 of taking wealth out of the hills and turning it to 
 the good of the race and the honor of the country. 
 My mother is always singing the praises of another 
 side of your character, which is still more important. 
 I am going to Lynchburg for her this afternoon. And 
 when I have taken her and Volilla back to the plan 
 tation and we have bread on the table again, you must 
 come and tell us more about California." 
 
 "Miss Lanley is here with my company. I I am 
 going to furnish her an escort to Lanleyton. I I am 
 going with her, myself, if she will permit me." 
 
 "There is no Lanleyton!" Bulwer exclaimed, with 
 surprise. 
 
 "Yes, there is or as good a substitute as can be 
 made." The Vagabond explained. 
 
 "You are magnificent magnificent! But but 
 that would make no difference with her." 
 
 "I knew it would not I don t want it to please 
 understand me!" 
 
 471 
 
THE VAGABOND 
 
 "Ah, I am the victor, after all. My battle is won. 
 I know that the girl whom I met when I was on re 
 cruiting duty in Alabama is waiting for me. And 
 you I fear you will be the defeated one. Volilla 
 cannot forgive the past, unless she is even deeper than 
 I thought." 
 
 When the Vagabond returned to his company he 
 brought the news that he had a month s leave. 
 
 "You can t reach Richmond to-night, but you can 
 find accommodations on the way," he said to Volilla. 
 "You can be in Richmond early to-morrow morning, 
 and Pve arranged for yourself, and also to put Folly 
 on the train, so you ll be in Lanleyton before to-mor 
 row night. Are you ready ? Shall we go now ?" 
 
 He sounded that "we" fearfully. It stood for his 
 decision, which meant that he had succumbed to the 
 temptation of being with her. She looked at him as 
 if her eyes, if not her lips, were already framing a 
 "No." Expecting to find Yankee soldiers gloating 
 over her fallen countrymen, she had found a fellow 
 ship on equal terms. To this and to the diplomacy of 
 the renowned Timothy Booker he owed her consent. 
 
 "It little matters how I get there, so that I get there 
 as soon as possible;" for once on her own land, she 
 felt that she would no longer be in the enemy s camp. 
 
 As they rode away, the men rose out of respect. One 
 started to call for a cheer for their leader, but desisted, 
 fearing that it would be indelicate, considering that 
 she was a Confederate. Scarcely a word passed be 
 tween the two for the rest of that afternoon. He 
 feared, as before, to have any mocking reply break 
 the spell of the enchantment of her presence. To him 
 
 472 
 
THE VAGABOND 
 
 there was no material of war or soldiers by the way 
 side. He rode through a peaceful valley, walled with 
 fruit and grain and verdure, the title thereto in her 
 name, and her name his. Thus he dreamed while he 
 might, with the horror of waking near, and Marcus 
 keeping at a respectful distance, his brow corrugated 
 with perplexity. 
 
 The houses of the village where they spent the 
 night were full of wounded men. Upon the appear 
 ance of a lady, the occupants of a small room in 
 sisted that they were well enough to be moved, or 
 to sit up, if there was no other place for her. A 
 nurse, delicately considerate of an enemy s suscepti 
 bilities, and praising Confederate heroism, shared her 
 quarters with the stranger. It seemed as if she were 
 a welcome guest whose fame for good deeds had pre 
 ceded her, instead of an enemy. Before she slept she 
 still better understood the spirit of the Northern sol 
 diers themselves toward their late adversaries. Con 
 tact had taken much of the bitterness out of her heart, 
 which is stronger with the woman, who may only 
 bear, than with the man, who can strike back, and, 
 therefore, forgive the more readily when the conflict 
 is over. She promised herself that she would try to 
 take up her heavy burden without ill-will. 
 
 "Dawn was not too early for you formerly. I hope 
 it is not now," said the Vagabond, when they were in 
 the saddle again. 
 
 "It is not," she replied, casually. 
 
 Silence was again welcome; and while he was en 
 grossed in his illusions, she was engrossed in thought. 
 
 Through the outskirts and then through the streets 
 of stricken Richmond they passed without further ex- 
 
 473 
 
THE VAGABOND 
 
 change of words. At the station, crowded with re 
 turning soldiers and incoming supplies, he left her 
 with Marcus Aurelius while he had the horses en 
 trained. In the car, she insisted in vain that the 
 wounded officers should remain seated while she 
 stood, for insistence meant that every place would be 
 vacant. They knew by her voice that she was a Vir 
 ginian, and they guessed that she was returning to 
 some devastated plantation. She felt the mute expres 
 sion of their sympathy by look and action. The Vaga 
 bond, grown pale, his lips tightly compressed, was 
 wishing that two of the passengers might never arrive 
 at their station. 
 
 When he assisted her to alight, and again when he 
 assisted her to mount Folly, he could not have spoken 
 if he would. His throat seemed in a vise, and his head 
 was dizzy from his heart s fast beating. His ears were 
 awaiting the ominous warning that she could go the 
 rest of the way alone, which did not come. Her man 
 ner was as preoccupied as his, and he took silence for 
 consent. Both stared into space, the horses choosing 
 their own gait. Every step was marking off a second 
 of the few minutes left to him. When they were so 
 near that a dozen rods farther would show them the 
 tops of the trees of Lanleyton, he made his cast. 
 
 "I love you! I love you! I cannot wait! I must 
 know!" he cried. 
 
 Slowly she turned her face toward him. It was 
 radiant with the smile that had been the Mecca of his 
 fancy. She held out her hand. No words could be 
 fraught with such grace as the confession of one whose 
 battle against her affection had been its noblest justi 
 fication. 
 
 474 
 
THE VAGABOND 
 
 "There are some things a woman cannot help, 
 dear," she said. 
 
 A hand-clasp! A hand-clasp, followed by the 
 mightiest, most cherished silence of all, in which they 
 tried to measure with young vision first scanning 
 grandeur the heights of their joy. Dear ! That word 
 so well expresses nearness and possession. If dream 
 ers they were by others canons, the sweeter the 
 greedily kept secret of that story which explained all. 
 "Some things a woman cannot help!" And a man 
 cannot help ! 
 
 He had forgotten the surprise he had prepared for 
 her until the white pillars of the new Lanleyton 
 gleamed through the trees, as those of the old had on 
 that day four years before when he had ridden forth 
 with a story to tell. 
 
 "0 I I!" she exclaimed. "I saw the ashes my 
 self! How how can it be?" 
 
 "A fairy worked while you were away." 
 
 "You! You you!" She reached out her hand 
 to his clasp again. 
 
 "A rough soldier fairy, dear," he added. 
 
 There was nothing more to say then, her heart being 
 too full of happiness, her eyes too full of all the famil 
 iar surroundings, as they rode on along the road and 
 up the drive (where they saw Felicia on the porch 
 beaming over a telegram that announced the Judge 
 safe and well). When she alighted it was in his arms. 
 Her fingers were running through his hair, his lips 
 were kissing her tear-wet lids. 
 
 "You did all this for me for me, in the face of 
 everything!" she said, in that abandon of a nature 
 which is prodigal of riches to a single soul alone. 
 
 475 
 
THE VAGABOND 
 
 "You did not let me know about the house. You 
 asked me before I knew. You wanted me for myself 
 alone! You have always loved me! I have always 
 been the only one! It is too good, too good! How 
 I fought against you! I used to stuff my ears at night 
 to keep out the sound of your voice telling your story. 
 I loved you first then no, no ! I loved you when you 
 didn t let me take you prisoner! There was no war! 
 There is only you!" 
 
 "We needed a house for for our honeymoon," 
 he suggested. 
 
 "No! no! Let us go to the mine for our honey 
 moon. The mine that is yours, you see. I m to 
 wait under the shade of the tree on the plateau and 
 you re to bring me the gold." 
 
 "And there will be new mines and new tasks 
 and you, always." 
 
 "Always !" 
 
 While she went from room to room, with words of 
 delight for his thoughtfulness in restoring every fa 
 miliar article that could be procured, Marcus Aure- 
 lius was digging up certain garments that he had 
 buried in a box in the garden. When he announced 
 dinner that night, his face was shining from overmuch 
 soap and water, and he wore the snuff -colored, brass- 
 buttoned spiketail of Parisian memory. Contrary to 
 his prophecy, he did not drop dead with delight, prob 
 ably because he did not want any upstart to take his 
 place behind his new master s chair. 
 
 THE END 
 
 476 
 
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 7 1934 
 
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