"You an innocent hunter!" he cried. "And you were lost in the mountains! That's a pretty tale! I suspected you from the first, you infernal Yankee spy, and now I have the proof." I was really afraid the old man would fall down in a fit, and I began to feel more sorrow than anger. "If you'll explain I'm ready to listen," I said, resuming my seat on the big stone, "and when you're through explaining I'll thank you to give me back my pencil and sketch." He seemed to feel the necessity of self-control, though I could see his anger was not diminishing. "You claimed to be a hunter lost in the mountains," he repeated, "when, in fact, you are a Yankee spy sent here upon your miserable business into the last stronghold of the Confederacy." I laughed loud and long. I know I ought not to have done so, but I could not help it. The blood rose higher in his cheeks, and his lips trembled, but he had himself under firm control at last. "I'm a spy upon you, am I?" I asked, "Where's the proof?" "Here it is," he said, holding up my pencil and sketch of the fort,--a poor enough sketch, too. "At the intercession of my daughter, I have been treating you this morning as a prisoner of war, ready for exchange or parole, and your first use of this hospitality is to draw for the Yankee government sketches and maps of my fortifications." "I did not intend to take that sketch to Washington," I protested, mildly. "It is quite certain that you will never do so," he said, putting sketch and pencil in his pocket. "I have other uses for these. Come with me." "Suppose I decline," I said. I was growing a little obstinate. Moreover, I was tired of being hacked about. He blew a little thing like a policeman's whistle: three or four men in Confederate uniform came out of the fort or the little outhouses. "We will see whether you will come," said the colonel, as the men approached. I have an objection to bruises and undignified struggles; so I concluded to go. "If you will kindly lead," I said, "I'll follow." I am happy to say that I retained my calmness and presence of mind. "Come on behind him, Crothers, and you too, Turner," said the colonel. "We will take no more chances with him." The two men closed up behind me, the colonel marched on before, and I was the convict in the middle. Thus we stalked back into Fort Defiance. Before I entered the door I saw Grace Hetherill looking from an upper window; her face expressed an alarm which I did not feel. I smiled at her in virtue of our brief comradeship of the morning, but she did not smile back: we had stalked out of view the next moment. The colonel led the way to the little room or cell which I had occupied during the previous night, and showed me in, with scant--very scant--courtesy. "It will be necessary to search you," he said. "We know not what further sketches or maps of Fort Defiance you may have concealed about you."