Steve gasped. “It can’t! I got a doctor’s certificate.—It ain’t any way from Grey Rock, ’n’ love made me run. It was jest a moment ’n’ I’ll pay for it to-morrow. I couldn’t march on that foot if Glory itself was there, hollerin’ me on!—Who’d believe you, either? A woman’s word ain’t countin’ much. Besides,”—he grinned, confidence returning,—“besides, you wouldn’t tell the regiment I’d run after you ’n’—’n’ kissed you—” His arm darted around her again. Christianna smote him on the cheek, broke away, and fled up the mountain. Around a turn of the road appeared, pacing stately, Mrs. Maydew. She was tall and strong, and she carried an axe in the hollow of her arm. Christianna stopped short with a sound between a sob and a laugh. She looked back. “Aren’t you comin’ on to the cabin, Mr. Dagg?” “Naw,” said Steve, “not to-day,” and, turning, went, elaborately limping, down the mountain. Some days later, being at the unworked sawmill at the foot of the mountain, he heard news. Crook and Averell had made a junction with Hunter at Staunton. Hunter had now an army of eighteen thousand men. Hunter was marching up the Valley, burning and destroying as he came. Hunter certainly meant to strike Lexington. Hunter— “Reckon we’d better rest right quiet here, don’t you?” asked Steve. “Even if they came into the county, they wouldn’t be likely to take a road this-a-way?” “I wouldn’t put it beyond them,” said the sawmill man darkly. “There’s a lot of valuable property on this mountain.” Steve grew profoundly restless. Each day now for a long time there was news. Breckinridge was at Rockfish Gap barring with a handful of troops Hunter’s direct road to Lynchburg. Hunter thereupon came on up the Valley with the intent to cross the Blue Ridge and pounce on Lynchburg from the west. He was a destroyer was Hunter and a well-hated one. The country was filled with sparks from his torches and with an indignant cry against his mode of warfare. Breckinridge marched to Lynchburg, but he detached McCausland with orders to do the best he could to harry and retard the blue advancing host. Down upon the Chickahominy, Lee was about to send Early, but days of fighting and burning must elapse before Early could reach Lynchburg. On the twelfth of June Hunter came to Lexington. CHAPTER XXXII HUNTER’S RAID