Unbarring the door, she flung it open, and stood on the threshold, a tiny spirit of wrath. “What do you folks mean?” she demanded hotly. “What do you folks mean by banging all the varnish off my door panels like that? Couldn’t you use the brass knocker? What do you want, anyway; disturbing an old woman, like this?” Four guerrillas gave back for an instant--if only for a bare instant--before her indignant outburst. Then one of them laughed. The spell was broken. Pushing past her, the quartet trooped into the hallway. At a glance, Mrs. Sessions could see they were tired, cross, and--apparently--more or less drunk. They had evidently moistened more than once the dry tedium of their afternoon’s search. “You’re old Yankee Sessions’s widder, I reckon,” said one of the four. “Yes,” she snapped, “I am. But I’ve lived hereabouts for ten years without ever before hearing rude language from any Southern man. No regular Confederate soldier would speak to a woman that way, either, or burst into her house without a ‘by-your-leave.’ It’s you guerrillas that are the pest of both armies. But you aren’t going to be the pest of _my_ house. Out you go, all of you!” “You spitfire!” hiccoughed the camp-follower. “I wish there was still a ducking-stool for scolds. Keep a civil tongue in your head or we’ll find a way to revive the ducking.” “What do you want here?” “We’re looking for a runaway Yank. Seen him go past?” “Why didn’t you say so first, instead of cluttering up my clean hall with mud and kicking the polish off my door? Yes,” she added with perfect truth, “I saw a Yankee. He was riding lickety-split along the road there.” “How long ago?” “I don’t know. Quite a while back. He seemed to be wounded.” The four moved excitedly toward the door. “I said so!” cried one of the men. “Just what I told you. He sneaked into the woods somewhere, and we rode past him. Then he doubled back.” “Wounded, hey?” said another. “My shots don’t miss. I knew I winged him. If we can get another mile or two of speed out of those nags, we may overhaul him yet.” Three of the men were at the door. The fourth, following, paused to light a cheroot by one of the candles on the table. As he was starting on after the others, he came to a sudden stop. His exclamation brought the three bushwhackers back into the hall. The man pointed melodramatically at a little pool of drying blood on the polished hardwood floor in the full glare of the candlelight. Beside the pool lay a Federal infantry cap. There was no need for words. The story told itself. The four men with one accord turned on Mrs. Sessions. She had, as though by sheer chance, taken up a position at the stair foot. And there she stood; magnificently futile and as futilely magnificent as a sparrow that bars a prowling tomcat’s way to her nest. “Well,” she demanded shrilly, “what are you going to do about it?”