Presently, very far away, the dulled report of a carbine sounded, stirring a deadened echo among the hills.
“What’s that?” she exclaimed.
“Yank, I reckon,” he drawled, rising to his feet and fixing his field glass steadily on the hills beyond.
“Are you going to have a battle here?” she asked.
He laughed. “Oh, no, Miss Cynthia. That’s only bushwhacking.”
“But—but where are they shooting?”
He pointed to the west. “There’s Yankee cavalry loafing in the hills. I reckon we’ll gobble ’em, too. But don’t you worry, Miss Cynthia,” he added gallantly. “I shall be here to-night, and by sunrise there won’t be a soldier within ten miles of you.”
“Within ten miles,” she murmured; “ten miles is too near. I—I think I will go back to the house.”
He looked down at her; she raised her dark eyes to him; then he bowed and gallantly held out both hands, and she laid her hands in his, suffering him to lift her to her feet.
The brief contact set the color mounting to his sunburnt temples; it had been a long while since he had touched a young girl’s hand.