She picked up her pine candle, hurried out to the bank and crept cautiously down the crazy, wooden stairs. Setting her torch in the iron cage at the bow, she cast off the painter and, standing erect, swung the long pole. Out into obscurity shot the punt, deeper and deeper plunged the pole. She headed up river to allow for the current; the cool breeze blew her hair and bathed her bared throat and arms deliciously; crimson torchlight flickered crisscross on the smooth water ahead. Every muscle in her body was in play now; the heavy pole slanted, rose and plunged; the water came clip! slap! clap! slap! against the square bows, dusting her with spray. On, on, tossing and pitching as the boat hit the swift, deep, center current; then the pole struck shallower depths, and after a while her torch reddened foliage hanging over the northern river bank. She drove her pole into the clay as the punt's bow grated; a Federal cavalryman--a mere lad--muddy to the knees, brier-torn, and ghastly pale, waded out through the shallows, revolver in hand, clambered aboard, and struck the torch into the water. "Take me over," he gasped. "Hurry, for God's sake! I tell you----" "Was it you who called?" "Yes. Snuyder sent you, didn't he? Don't stand there talking----" With a nervous stroke she drove the punt far out into the darkness, then fell into a measured, swinging motion, standing nearer the stern than the bow. There was no sound now but the lapping of water and the man's thick breathing; she strove to pierce the darkness between them, but she could see only a lumpish shadow in the bow where he crouched. "I reckon you're Roy Allen," she began, but he cut her short: "Damn it! What's that to you?" "Nothing. Only Snuyder's gone." "When?" "Some days ago, leaving me to ferry folk over.... He told me how to answer you when you called like a cock-o'-the-pines." "Did he?" The voice was subdued and sullen. For a while he remained motionless, then, in the dull light of the fog-shrouded stars she saw him face her, and caught the faint sparkle of his weapon resting on his knees, covering her. "It seems to me," he said fiercely, "that you are asking a good many questions. Which side pays you?" They were tossing now on the rapid little waves in the center of the river; she had all she could do to keep the punt steady and drive it toward the spot where, against the stars, the oaks lifted their clustered crests. At the foot of the wooden stairs she tied her boat, and offered to relight the pine knot, but he would not have it and made her grope up the ascent before him. Over the top of the bank she led him, under the trees, to her door, he close at her heels, revolver in hand. And there, on the sill, she faced him. "What do you want here?" she asked; "supper?"