And it was with the greatest difficulty and an acute sense of my own brutality, that I did so. I began by congratulating Miss May, which evoked a lovable blush. “You know we have to start after dark and drive twenty miles to-night,” said she, “to a station on the Georgia road--we cannot return the same way; Mr. Raoul has some reason.” “Do you think that we four ought to go off--ought to go off just like that?” Miss Bruce looked at me, amazed. Jeanie tried to help her. “Do you not have wedding-journeys in the North?” “Alone, I mean,” I ended, desperately. “Alone? Mrs. Judge Pennoyer is going.” Mrs. Judge Pennoyer had all the elements of a true sport; and I went back to Raoul--(having had a long walk down the brook with Jeanie; her happiness in her sister’s prospects was quite charming)--an hour after the time fixed, less decided--I think there is some adventurous blood in the Higginbothams--and found the camp in a state of wild tumult. Raoul met me nervously. “General McBride paroled Kelly and his gang,” said he, “and the moonshiners have come back from the mountains a hundred strong, and given the revenue officers twenty minutes to leave for New Orleans.” “And are they going?” said I. “They calculate, sir, to go,” answered Raoul, gravely. “The mule team will take them back to the head of the line, and there we have wired for a special to carry them back to Bagdad. I have decided it is best for us to go with them. The special train simplifies matters. I trust you have come to a decision?” “I--I do not know,” said I. “We certainly cannot leave them here in camp. Every nigger in it will be blind drunk before midnight, and they are fortifying the commissary’s store.” “What on earth did McBride mean by paroling those ruffians,” I sighed. “It was beginning to be so pleasant.” “It was an error of judgment. But it will be equally pleasant at White Sulphur.” As we talked we had returned to the centre of the camp. There we found a picturesque scene. McBride and his men were seated in the glade of the live-oak forest, no longer disguised; around them stood or lounged some forty bearded mountaineers, all provided with long rifles. General McBride was sitting with King Kelly himself, amicably drinking his own “pine-top;” as we approached he rose to meet us and handed a telegram to Raoul, who cast his eyes over it and gave it to me, with the remark that it might assist my decision. It read: “If cousins Miss Bruce are with you, detain them and escorts. Will wire parental authority to-morrow. “KIRK BRUCE.” “I feel bound, sir, to ask you your intentions,” said McBride to Raoul. “Miss May Bruce and I are to be married, sir.” “In that case, sir,” said the General, “in the absence of parental authority I cannot, of course, interfere. Permit me to congratulate you.” They shook hands. “And this Northern gentleman?” “Goes with me, of course. And Mrs. Judge Pennoyer.”