"I want to go with _you_," declared the boy, half crying. "No," said the girl coaxingly. "You must be their guide, and lead them to the ledge of rocks by the sheep-shed. Think how fine it will be to be a _real_ soldier." Then appalled by a new thought: "Oh, but if you should get tired and _couldn't_ lead them there, how would they ever find the place? _What shall I do!_ I can't wait for them--I must go back ahead. _If_ he shouldn't be there! If something should have warned or detained him! _What will I do!_" "Oh, shoot it all, _I'll_ take 'em there all right!" exclaimed the boy, in a very big voice. "Don't you worry. I ain't a bit tired, an' I ain't a-goin' to be, neither!" Hope reached over and clasped the child in her arms, a sob coming with her breath. "_My little man!_" she said softly. Then instructing him to follow her, spurred up her horse to a fresh attempt, and so mad was her ride that she scarcely breathed until she dropped to the ground beside a sentinel who commanded her to halt. How she roused the camp in the middle of the night was a story Larry O'Hara often delighted to relate. It was Larry who really came to the rescue, who shouldered the responsibility of the action, and led the troops when finally equipped to the scene of the disturbance. And Hope rode back alone--rode so rapidly that her horse stopped, exhausted, at the foot of the big hill where she had planned the rendezvous with Livingston. There she left the noble animal and climbed up toward the summit, sometimes on her hands and knees, so tired had she become. And the moon still shone brightly along the horizon of the heavens. An hour of brilliancy, she thought, then darkness before the dawn. When she had dragged herself up the mountain side, hope and fear alternately filling her heart, and hastening her footsteps, a sudden weakness came over her as she saw on the summit the stalwart figure of Livingston. Then it seemed to her that the night had been a mere dream, or at least ridiculous. How could such a strong, brave-looking man require a girl's assistance? It was preposterous! She seemed to shrink into herself, in a little cuddled heap among the rocks. Then a clear whistle sounded on the still air. She knew it was for her. How like a boy, she thought. She tried to answer it, but could not make a sound. Finally she rose from the rocks and approached him--not the Hope he had expected, but a frightened, trembling girl. He went to meet her, after the manner of a boy, and clasped the hands she gave him in his own, then kissed each one, and gravely led her to the summit upon which he had been standing. "This rock is like a great throne," he said, "where we are going to wait our crown of happiness that is to come with the rising of the sun. Is it not so? See, you shall sit upon the throne and I here at your feet. How you are trembling, dear! And those heavy guns, why did you bring them?"