“April,” she said, gently, “I think I ought to tell you that Mr. Hendon may be a prisoner.” “With the Yankees?” April demanded with a sudden whitening of her face. “No, with some one of the Confederate bands,” Dorothea answered, and then told her cousin all that Tracy feared. “But all Lee would have to do is to say what he had been doing,” April insisted. “If he told his captors that he was really a Southern spy, although he wore a blue uniform—” She broke off suddenly, realizing that her words did not ring true. She herself would be very skeptical of a man who had apparently shown no enthusiasm for the Confederacy and later had been taken in the garb of its enemies. “Dorothea,” she cried, her eyes widening with apprehension, “did Val believe there was any danger?” “Yes,” Dorothea answered, thinking no good would come of hiding anything. “He was afraid Mr. Hendon might have been captured by men who would take the law into their own hands.” April jumped to her feet with a sharp cry. “But they mustn’t have their own way!” she exclaimed. “Something must be done at once. Where did Val say Lee was?” “He didn’t know,” Dorothea answered. “He went out to look for him. You see, he put the men on Mr. Hendon’s trail, fancying he was a Union spy who was trying to warn the Federal soldiers in Savannah. When I saw Captain Tracy last he didn’t know that Mr. Hendon had been captured, though he thought it likely. I don’t know where either of them are now.” “But there must be something we can do,” April insisted. “We can’t sit here and just wait. They may kill Lee. Oh, Dorothea,” she sobbed, “it was I that set Val Tracy after Lee. If I hadn’t been so suspicious of you, he would have been out of harm’s way now. Oh, what shall I do if anything happens to Lee?” She sank down in a chair, sobbing as if her heart would break and Dorothea, her own eyes wet with sympathetic tears, tried to comfort her, knowing all the while how inadequate were words to lighten such anxiety. But April was not one of those girls who do nothing but cry when misfortune overtakes them. In a very few minutes she dried her tears and became her brave, resolute self. “Dorothea, there must be something we can do,” she said emphatically. “Didn’t Val give you a hint of where he might be going?” Dorothea shook her head. “He had no idea himself, April,” she replied. “Captain Tracy had roused the whole country, hoping to capture Mr. Hendon before he could get through to Savannah.” She would have gone on but, on answering a knock at the door, they found Lucy. “Please, Miss Dee,” began the colored maid, “there’s a boy down stairs wantin’ mighty bad to see you-all.” “To see me?” Dorothea questioned, not knowing who it could possibly be. “What kind of a boy, Lucy?” “Oh, jes’ one of ’em ordinary boys, Miss,” answered the girl as if she were giving an entirely adequate description. “I reckon he’s come some ways, seein’ he’s ridin’ a poor, skin-and-bones mule.”