The first flutter of perturbation at going out into the darkness and the midst of armed men had given way to a more composed feeling. No one had stopped her, or offered to, no one had shown any symptom of surprise at her presence there at that hour. She began to hope that this immunity would continue until she had made her way to the Union lines. she had left the thick of the crowd behind some distance, and was going along at a fair pace, over a clear road, studying all the while the line of fires far to her right, in an attempt to discover a promising dark gap in their extent. She was startled by a hand laid upon her bridle, and a voice saying: “Say, Sis, who mout ye be, an' whar mout ye be a-mosyin' ter this time o' night?” She saw a squad of brigandish-looking stragglers at her mare's head. “My name's Polly Briggs. I live on the South Fork o' Overall's Creek. I've done been ter Dr. Thacker's in Murfreesboro, fur some medicine fur my sick mammy, an' I'm on my way back home, an' I'd be much obleeged ter ye, gentlemen, ef ye'd 'low me ter go on, kase mammy's powerful sick, an' she's in great hurry fur her medicine.” She said this with a coolness and a perfect imitation of the speech and manner of the section that surprised herself. As she ended she looked directly at the squad, and inspected them. She saw she had reason to be alarmed. They were those prowling wolves found about all armies, to whom war meant only wider opportunities for all manner of villainy and outrage. An unprotected girl was a welcome prize to them. It was not death as a spy she had to fear, but worse. Now, if ever, she must act decisively. The leader took his hand from her bridle, as if to place it on her. “Yer a powerful peart sort of a gal, an' ez purty ez a fawn. yer mammy kin git 'long without the medicine a little while, an'---” He did not finish the sentence, for before his hand could touch her Rachel's whip cut a deep wale across his face, and then it fell so savagely upon the mare's flank that the high-spirited animal sprung forward as if shot from a catapult, and was a hundred yards away before the rascals really comprehended what had happened. Onward sped the mettled brute, so maddened by the first cruel blow she had ever received that she refused to obey the rein, but made her own way by and through such objects as she encountered. When she at last calmed down the road was clear and lonely, and Rachel began searching for indications of a favorable point of approach to the river, that hinted at a bridge or a ford. While engaged in this she heard voices approaching. A moment's listening to teh mingling of tones convinced her that it was another crowd of stragglers, and she obeyed her first impulse, which was to leap her horse over a low stone wall to her right. Taking her head again, the mare did not stop until she galloped down to the water's edge.