The girl ran to the northward corner again and gazed out across the rushing, swollen river. Not so much as a sign of a dust-cloud to tell of marching cavalry, and she turned again, with rebuke ready on her tongue, but again the voice from within:
"Comin' t 'other way, chile. Must ha' took the lower fohd and rode roun' back o' de stables," and, with the words, a laughing "mammy" came bustling to the front door, a cool white pitcher in one hand, a tray with glasses in the other.
"Ah know well 'nuff what brings de lieutenant round dis way. As for dat—trash—wid him"—and here came a chuckle of delight at her own wit—"he just cain't help hisself." But Dora was not listening. Light as a bird she had flown to the other end of the little porch and was gazing out through the honeysuckles with all her soul in her eyes.
Coming up the slope at easy canter rode a young officer, with broad-brimmed hat and dusty field dress, alert, slender, sinewy, of only medium height and not more than twenty-five years, with a handsome, sun-tanned, smiling face, a picture of healthful, wholesome young manhood. And behind him, at the regulation distance, came what Aunt Chloe, in her "darky" dialect more than once had declared "the very spit of him"—a young trooper in similar slouch hat and dusty field dress, younger, probably, by three or four years, but to the full as alert and active, as healthful and wholesome to look at, his face now all aglow with a light that was sweet for girlish eyes to see.
The leader swung his hat and blithely shouted as he curbed his eager horse. "Howdy, Miss Dora. Bless your heart, Aunt Chloe, I knew you'd have the buttermilk ready! No, Rawdon, I shan't dismount"—this to the young "orderly," who had sprung from saddle and, with his rein over his arm, stood ready to take that of his officer. "Merciful saints! but isn't that good after thirty miles of alkali!" He had swallowed a brimming goblet of the cool, refreshing drink, and Chloe was delightedly refilling. "Father home, Miss Dora?" he went on cheerily.
"Over at the stables, Mr. Lanier," was the smiling answer. The face of the girl was sunshine and roses now, yet merely a glance or two had passed, for Trooper Rawdon had instantly swung once more into saddle and was reining back to his place.
"Stables going yet? Why, I thought it must be supper time. Colonel sent me ahead to find him. Three of 'E' Troop horses act like they'd been eating loco-weed. That's what kept us."
"Colonel Button's always findin' some way of sendin' you in ahaid, Marse Lanier," grinned Chloe. "Ah don't wonder dey says you can do anything you like an' never get hauled up for it."
"You're a gossip, Auntie," laughed Lanier. "The colonel would cinch me quick as the next man if I happened to rub his fur the wrong way. One more swig now and I'm off. Tastes almost like the South again, doesn't it?"
"Lak de Souf!" Aunt Chloe bristled, indignant. "Sho! Dat's no more lak de buttermilk we makes dan dat ar' hawse is lak de racers at Belle Mead. Cows got to have white clover, Marse Lanier, an' white clover don't grow in dis Gawd foh-saken country."