just left."

[Illustration: "I surrender," he said, with amiable ease.]

"Easier to get away, you think?" I asked, with a worse frown than ever,
as he stepped into the carry-all and took the lines.

"No, not so easy; but those fellows are Arkansans, and they're in a bad
humor with me."

I took the hint and grew less ferocious. "While you," I said, "are
Captain Jewett."

"I am," was his reply, and my heart leaped for joy. We hurried away. My
captive was the most daring Union scout between Vicksburg and New
Orleans; these very Harpers knew that. The thing unknown to us was that
already his fate was entangled with Ned Ferry's and Charlotte Oliver's,
as yet more it would be, with theirs and ours, in days close at hand.



XI


CAPTAIN JEWETT

Once more we were in the by-road which had brought us westward parallel
with the highway. The prisoner drove. Aunt Martha sat beside him, slim,
dark, black-eyed, stately, her silver-gray hair rolled high a la
Pompadour. With a magnanimity rare in those bitter days she incited him