Alice rested before her, fast asleep
against her bosom. Mary held by the bridle another horse, whose naked
saddle-tree was empty. A few steps in front of her the light of the full
moon shone almost straight down upon a narrow road that just there
emerged from the shadow of woods on either side, and divided into a main
right fork and a much smaller one that curved around to Mary's left. Off
in the direction of the main fork the sky was all aglow with camp-fires.
Only just here on the left there was a cool and grateful darkness.
She lifted her head alertly. A twig crackled under a tread, and the next
moment a man came out of the bushes at the left, and without a word took
the bridle of the old horse from her fingers and vaulted into the
saddle. The hand that rested a moment on the cantle as he rose grasped a
"navy six." He was dressed in dull homespun, but he was the same who had
been dressed in blue. He turned his horse and led the way down the
lesser road.
"If we'd gone on three hundred yards further," he whispered, falling
back and smiling broadly, "we'd 'a' run into the pickets.
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