"Then the young man told her that he had accidentally shot a man who was out hunting with him, and that the man's brothers, who were very bad people, had sworn to have his blood.
"Then Mercy took his hand, and led him quickly up to her room, and lifted the cover of the hiding-place, and told him to get in. And he got in, but first he said, 'Fair maiden, if I come out alive, I shall have somewhat to say to thee.' And Mercy blushed."
"What did he mean?" asked Eunice, innocently.
"Oh, just love-making and nonsense!" put in Reuben. "Hurry up, Cynthia! Come to the fighting. The candle's all but burned out."
"There isn't going to be any fighting," returned Cynthia. "Well, Mercy pulled the bedside carpet over the cover, and she set that red candle-stand on one corner of it and a chair on the other corner, and went back to her spinning. She had hardly begun before there was a rustling in the bushes, and two men with guns in their hands came out.
"'Which way did he go?' they shouted.
"'Who?' she said, and she looked up so quietly that they never suspected her.
"'Has no one gone by?' they asked her.
"'No one,' she said; and you know this wasn't a lie, for the young man did not go by. He stopped!
"'There is the back door open,' she went on, 'and you are welcome to search, if you desire it. My father is away, but he will be here soon.' She said this because she feared the men.