The prisoners taken away and other signs of conflict removed, we were left to our old duty, and hill and hollow resumed their quiet. I was much troubled, but at last I made up my mind what to do. Asking Whitestone to keep a good watch, I went to the house and knocked with much loudness at the front door. Kate opened the door, self-possessed and dignified.
“Miss Van Auken,” I said with all my dignity, “I congratulate you upon your progress in the useful art of sharpshooting. You have wounded Sergeant Whitestone, a most excellent man, and perhaps it was chance only that saved him from death.”
“Why should you blame me?” she said. “I wished the man you were pursuing to escape, and there was no other way to help him. This is war, you know.”
I had scarce expected so frank an admission.
“I will have to search the house for your weapon,” I said. “How do I know that you will not shoot at me as I go away?”
“Do not trouble yourself,” she said easily, “I will bring it to you.”
She ran up the stairway and returned in a moment with a large, unloaded pistol, which she held out to me.
“I might have tried to use it again,” she said with a little laugh, “but I confess I did not know how to reload it.”
She handed me the pistol with a gesture of repulsion as if she were glad to get rid of it. Her frankness changed my purpose somewhat, and I asked her how her mother fared.
“Very well, but in most dreadful alarm because of the fighting,” she replied.