"Dess keep dish yeh road fo' 'bout half mile, an' you strak 'pon de broad, main road. Tek de left, an' you go whah yo' fancy tek you."
"Good-by," whispered Mary.
"Good-by, Miss," said the negro, in the same low voice; "good-by, boss; don't you fo'git you promise tek me thoo to de Yankee' when you come back. I 'feered you gwine fo'git it, boss."
The spy said he would not, and they left him. The half-mile was soon passed, though it turned out to be a mile and a half, and at length Mary's companion looked back as they rode single file with Mary in the rear, and said softly:
"There's the road," pointing at its broad, pale line with his six-shooter.
As they entered it and turned to the left, Mary, with Alice again in her arms, moved somewhat ahead of her companion, her indifferent horsemanship having compelled him to drop back to avoid a prickly bush. His horse was just quickening his pace to regain the lost position, when a man sprang up from the ground on the farther side of the highway, snatched a carbine from the earth and cried: "Halt!"
The dark recumbent forms of six or eight others could be seen, enveloped in their blankets, lying about a few red coals. Mary turned a frightened look backward and met the eyes of her companion.
"Move a little faster," said he, in a low, clear voice. As she promptly did so she heard him answer the challenge, as his horse trotted softly after hers.
"Don't stop us, my friend; we're taking a sick child to the doctor."
"Halt, you hound!" the cry rang out; and as Mary glanced back three or four men were just leaping into the road. But she saw also her companion, his face suffused with an earnestness that was almost an agony, rise in his stirrups with the stoop of his shoulders all gone, and wildly cry: