Cap'n Sproul sighed and went for his valise.
"What she said to me as I come away curled the leaves in the front yard," confided Hiram, as they walked together down the road.
"Ditto and the same," mourned the Cap'n.
At dusk that evening they dismounted from a Vienna livery-hitch on a back road in Smyrna, paid the driver and dismissed the team, and started briskly through the pastures across lots toward Hiram Look's farm.
An hour later, moving with the stealth of red Indians, they posted themselves behind the stone wall opposite the lane leading into the Look dooryard. They squatted there breathing stertorously, their eyes goggling into the night.
The Cap'n, with vision trained by vigils at sea, was the first to see the dim shape approaching. When she had come nearer they saw a tall feather nodding against the dim sky.
"Let's get her before she throws the letter—get her with the goods on her!" breathed Hiram, huskily. And when she was opposite they leaped the stone wall.
She had seasonable alarm, for several big stones rolled off the wall's top. And she turned and ran down the road with the two men pounding along fiercely in pursuit.
"My Gawd!" gasped Aaron, after a dozen rods; "talk about—gayzelles—she's—she's—"
He didn't finish the sentence, preferring to save his breath.