back to the rest of the world, engaged, no doubt, in a steadfast
contemplation of the calm man, and incidentally, of the feed-box. She
knew, too, that even if she should open the kitchen door, three heads,
and perhaps four, would turn casually in her direction. Their ears were
real ears.

Heroines, she knew, conducted these matters with infinite precision and
despatch. They severed the hero's bonds, cried a dramatic sentence, and
stood between him and his enemies until he had run far enough away. She
saw well, however, that even should she achieve all things up to the
point where she might take glorious stand between the escaping and the
pursuers, those grim troopers in blue would not pause. They would run
around her, make a circuit. One by one she saw the gorgeous contrivances
and expedients of fiction fall before the plain, homely difficulties of
this situation. They were of no service. Sadly, ruefully, she thought of
the calm man and of the contents of the feed-box.

The sum of her invention was that she could sally forth to the
commander of the blue cavalry, and confessing to him that there were
three of her friends and his enemies secreted in the feed-box, pray him
to let them depart unmolested. But she was beginning to believe the old
greybeard to be a bear. It was hardly probable that he would give this
plan his support. It was more probable that he and some of his men would
at once descend upon the feed-box and confiscate her three friends. The
difficulty with her idea was that she could not learn its value without
trying it, and then in case of failure it would be too late for remedies
and other plans. She reflected that war made men very unreasonable.

All that she could do was to stand at the window and mournfully regard
the barn. She admitted this to herself with a sense of deep humiliation.