“Air ye goin’ ter fire it ’kase this be Chris’mus eve?” she asked in doubt. He glanced absently at her and said not a word. The next moment he had sprung out of the door and they heard his step crunching through the frozen crust of snow as he strode away. There were rifts in the clouds and the moon looked out. The white, untrodden road lay, a glittering avenue, far along the solitudes of the dense and leafless forests. Sometimes belts of vapor shimmered before him, and as he went he saw above them the distant gables of the old hotel rising starkly against the chill sky. In view presently in the white moonlight were the long piazzas of the shattered old building, the shadows of the many tall pillars distinct upon the floor. He heard the sound of the sentry’s tread, and down the vista between the columns and the shadowy colonnade he saw the soldierly figure pacing slowly to and fro. He had not reckoned on this precaution on the part of the bushwhackers. But the rambling old building, in every nook and cranny, was familiar to him. While the sentry’s back was turned, he silently crept along the piazza to an open passageway which led to the grassy square within. The rime on the dead weeds glistened in the moonbeams; the snow lay trampled along the galleries on which opened the empty rooms; here and there, as the doors swung on their hinges, he could see through the desolate void within, the bleak landscape beyond. There were horses stabled in some of them, and in the center of the square two or three were munching their feed from the old music-stand, utilized as a manger. One of them, a handsome bay, arched his glossy neck to gaze at the intruder over the gauzy sheen of gathering vapor, his full dilated eyes with the moonlight in them. Then with a snort he went back to his corn. Only one window was alight. There was a roaring fire within, and the ruddy glow danced on the empty walls and on the hilarious, bearded faces grouped about the hearth. The men, clad in butternut jeans, smoked their pipes as they sat on logs or lounged at length on the floor. A festive canteen was a prominent adjunct of the scene, and was often replenished from a burly keg in the corner. As Hilary approached the window he suddenly recognized a face which he had cause to remember. He had not seen this face since Jack Bixby looked furiously down from his saddle, hacking the while with his bowie-knife at his comrade’s bleeding right arm. No enemy had done this thing--Hilary’s own fast friend.