As Mary sprang backward and screamed, one of the calm men in grey,
still grinning, announced, "I knowed you'd holler." Sitting there
comfortably the three surveyed her with amusement.

Mary caught her breath, throwing her hand up to her throat. "Oh!" she
said, "you--you frightened me!"

"We're sorry, lady, but couldn't help it no way," cheerfully responded
another. "I knowed you'd holler when I seen you coming yere, but I
raikoned we couldn't help it no way. We hain't a-troubling this yere
barn, I don't guess. We been doing some mighty tall sleeping yere. We
done woke when them Yanks loped past."

"Where did you come from? Did--did you escape from the--the Yankees?"
The girl still stammered and trembled.

The three soldiers laughed. "No, m'm. No, m'm. They never cotch us. We
was in a muss down the road yere about two mile. And Bill yere they gin
it to him in the arm, kehplunk. And they pasted me thar, too. Curious,
And Sim yere, he didn't get nothing, but they chased us all quite a
little piece, and we done lose track of our boys."

"Was it--was it those who passed here just now? Did they chase you?"

The men in grey laughed again. "What--them? No, indeedee! There was a
mighty big swarm of Yanks and a mighty big swarm of our boys, too. What--
that little passel? No, m'm."

She became calm enough to scan them more attentively. They were much
begrimed and very dusty. Their grey clothes were tattered. Splashed mud