United States -- History -- Civil War, 1861-1865 -- Fiction
“You would never find the place,” Lee said, with a shake of his head.
“It would be easier for you to come back here, but I shall want to know
exactly when to expect you. Which is your room in the May house?” he
ended.
“The one at the southwest corner,” she replied after an instant’s effort
to fix the points of the compass.
“Good,” he replied. “That is the first bit of luck we’ve had so far. I
can see that room from a place I know in the woods. When you’re sure
you’ll have a chance to get here alone, pull the curtain down all the
way. If it is at night and you plan to reach me the next morning, a
lighted candle will tell me. I haven’t much else to do, so I’ll be
watching most of the time,” he added with a pathetic smile.
“Very well,” Dorothea agreed and prepared to start on.
“Don’t bring all that money in bills,” he cautioned her. “Five hundred
dollars in State notes and two thousand, say, in Confederate money will
be ample.”
“That hardly seems enough,” she replied, remembering Lucy’s saying that
it took a barrelful of Confederate money to pay for the bung-hole.
“It will be plenty,” he assured her. “Good-by, and thank you very, very
much for coming to my aid.”
He held out his hand and Dorothea took it, but at that moment there came
the sounds of footsteps on the path beyond them.
“Go quickly, it’s Harriot looking for me,” she whispered, and Lee Hendon
plunged into the thicket.
Dorothea turned, expecting to see her young cousin ready with a
bantering remark at her slowness, but to her great astonishment April
came toward her, walking at a rather rapid pace. An instant later the
two girls stopped short and stared at each other.
To Dorothea there was but one explanation of this sudden appearance of
April’s. She must have heard that Lee Hendon was hiding in the
neighborhood. She wondered what excuse her beautiful cousin would make.
“I didn’t expect to see you here,” April remarked. “I thought you were
driving with Harry.”
“We have a wager on whether the horse can beat me home,” Dorothea
answered, but at the moment she said it there came a crash in the bushes
as if some one had fallen, in tripping over a log.
April’s keen glance went to Dorothea’s face and read there something of
the confusion the younger girl felt. They stood in silence, awaiting a
repetition of the strange noise, but there was no further sound.
“That was a rather curious commotion for these woods,” April said
significantly.
“Are there deer about here?” Dorothea asked, quite calm now and
returning her cousin’s look quietly. “Or bears? I didn’t know there were
any large animals in this part of the country. But how comes it, April,
that you are not with Hal?”
“Mother is there,” the girl answered. “She is better and wished me to
get out into the air for a little while. I want something from Aunt
Cora, and was on my way there.”
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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