“That red-headed girl has made off with our horses, and for all we know may bring a party of Yanks after us,” declared Richard; “we’d better make for the Virginia line.” His companion promptly agreed, and they hurried across the bridge, turned into a path that led by the river and disappeared. CHAPTER III A PAPER CIRCUS But it was not Polly who had made off with the two saddle-horses; for as the two soldiers dashed up the slope after Roxy the runaway had appeared from his hiding-place, carrying the loaf of bread in one hand, and had hastened to where the two horses stood nibbling at the wayside grass; without a word to Polly he slipped the bread into a big pocket of one of the saddles, seized the swinging bridle reins and mounted the horse, and leading the other, was off at a gallop down the road toward Sharpsburg. Polly stared after him until the sound of the hoofs of the speeding horses died away in the distance, and then turned her horse toward home. Her quick glance had noted the loaf of bread, and that something resembling the frame of a chicken bulged from the young man’s pocket. “He must have been hiding there all the time. I wonder where he got the bread?” thought the surprised girl, and she smiled at the thought of the two men who were in search of him and who had been so cleverly misled. “If Roxy had known about the man and planned to help him she could not have done anything better,” thought Polly. “Poor little Roxy! They frightened her half out of her senses,” and Polly resolved to go over that very evening and see her friend and tell her of the hidden man and of his escape from his pursuers. But it was from Dulcie that Roxy first heard the news. Dulcie peering over the wall had seen the young man as he ran toward the horses, mounted and galloped out of sight, and when the gray-clad Confederate soldiers dashed past her she had chuckled with delight. “Dey won’ be a-ridin’ off so gran’ as dey are spectin’ to,” she said. “Wot dey mean anyway a-prospectin’ roun’ in Marylan’? Dis state ain’ fer upsettin’ de United States Gubbermint. ’Deed it ain’t,” and Dulcie shook her head disapprovingly over the idea that Southern soldiers should so fearlessly enter a loyal state. Dulcie well knew that the great conflict between North and South meant not only the freedom of the negroes, if the Northern Armies were successful, but a united and undivided nation. Mrs. Miller talked freely with her colored servants, and Dulcie was sure that whatever “Ole Miss” said was true; and she now hurried back to the farmhouse to tell the family what she had seen.