This must be the burned clearing; her map and the cabin corroborated her belief. Then it was here that she was to meet this unknown man in Confederate uniform and Union pay--a spy like herself--and give him certain information and receive certain information in return. Her instructions had been unusually rigid; she was to take every precaution; use native disguise whether or not it might appear necessary, carry no papers, and let any man she might encounter make the advances until she was absolutely certain of him. For there was an ugly rumor afloat that the man she expected had been caught and hanged, and that a Confederate might attempt to impersonate him. So she looked very carefully at her map, then out of the thicket at the burned clearing. There was the wretched cabin named as rendezvous, the little garden patch with standing corn and beans, and here and there a yellowing squash. _Why had the passing rebel cavalry left all that good food undisturbed?_ Fear, which within her was always latent, always too ready to influence her by masquerading as caution, stirred now. For almost an hour she stood, balancing her field glasses across her saddle, eyes focused on the open cabin door. Nothing stirred there. At last, with a slight shiver, she opened her saddle bags and drew out the dress she meant to wear--a dingy, earth-colored thing of gingham. Deep in the thicket she undressed, folded her fine linen and silken stockings, laid them away in the saddle bags together with waist and skirt, field glasses, gauntlets, and whip, and the map and papers, which latter, while affording no information to the enemy, would certainly serve to convict her. Dressed now in the scanty, colorless clothing of a "poor white" of the pine woods, limbs and body tanned with walnut, her slender feet rubbed in dust and then thrust stockingless into shapeless shoes, she let down the dark, lustrous mass of her hair, braided it, tied it with faded ribbon, rubbed her hands in wood mold and crushed green leaves over them till they seemed all stained and marred with toil. Then she gathered an armful of splinter wood. Now ready, she tethered her horse, leaving him bitted and saddled; spread out his sack of feed, turned and looked once more at the cabin, then walked noiselessly to the clearing's edge, carrying her aromatic splinters. Underfoot, as she crossed it, the charred grass crumbled to powder; three wild doves flickered up into flight, making a soft clatter and displaying the four white feathers. A quail called from the bean patch. The heat was intense in the sun; perspiration streaked her features; her tender feet burned; the cabin seemed a long way off, a wavering blot through the dancing heat devils playing above the fire-scorched open.