"I'm sorry, sir, but I'll have to trouble ye to get under cover in the woods. No argymint, sir," he said decisively, as he saw some show of resistance on Cary's part. "I'm under orders."
"Yes, yes, I know," Cary cried, impatiently, "but I want to speak to Colonel Morrison. I must speak to him. Give me a moment, man. You won't ever regret it."
"Come now—none o' that," commanded the trooper, pushing him back with the carbine across his breast. "Don't make me use force, sir. Ye'll have to go—so go quietly. And mind—no shenanigan!"
Cary stood his ground for a moment, meeting the trooper eye to eye—then turned with hanging head and walked a few steps back into the woods.
"Come, Virgie," he said, "I guess we won't get to see Colonel Morrison after all."
But Virgie, being a woman, had her own ideas about what she would or would not do. At the same moment that the trooper was forcing her father step by step back into the woods, Virgie was running madly towards the stone wall and before either of the soldiers could stop her she had clambered up on its broad top and was calling out to a man who clattered by at the head of a troop of cavalry.
"Colonel Morrison! Colonel Morrison!"
CHAPTER VIII
"Halt!"