“Oh!” and the hurt look made Solomon wish to fight something for her sake—“but I’ll soon be back with more.” She turned with a pretty gesture. “Don’t—don’t,” he called, “send it by a nigger. Who can eat with a angel lookin’?” She laughed so heartily at this that Solomon was soon himself. When she brought him another plate he forgot everything except he had seen her, that at last into his life something had come. He wished very much to impress her—to say something grand, but everything he tried to say ended in a brag—so unusual for Solomon: “I was heah las’ night a-guardin’ you-uns, an’ I come mighty nigh killin’ a man.” “Oh!”—and the fun went out of her eyes. “I am so grateful to you. Did—did—he hurt you when he fired?” All the brag went out of him. Not for the world would he have her know that. “No—but—it was a narrow shave.” “I am so glad—you see he—was—my brother.” “Sho’ nuff?” and Solomon guffawed. Somehow it relieved him so to know he was only a brother. “Wal, now, how strange! But the Gen’l was tellin’ us ’bout a Johnny Scout in here, a tall feller in citizens’ clothes. Oh, he’s played the devil with us. He knows our plans better’n we do. We ’low we s’prise little Joe at Dug’s Gap, but little Joe s’prises us. Then we ’low we’ll trap him at Resaca an’ swing round on his flank. But he come nigh trappin’ us. We laid for him mighty keerful at New Hope an’ saunt Howard to turn his flank. He turned our’n. It’s all that’r scout, and so the Gen’l sed when he saunt me out las’ night: “Solomon, shoot anything in citizens’ clothes that tries to buck our lines. Kill him fust an’ ax him whur he’s goin’ after’uds.” So when he steps out las’ night—that brother er your’n—I was right thar watchin’, an’ I flung up my old Deckerd an’ I drawed a bead on him—it was all so plain, him outlined in the starlight. But he looked so han’sum a-settin a hoss so lak Ajax thet I sed: ”No, I’ll not shoot him—he’s somebody’s brother. An’ sho’ nuff he was your’n!” The girl turned white, then pink. Tears came to her eyes, the sight of which made Solomon’s jaws set in stern decision. He pitied her, thinking of Dinah Mariah—his sister. He swelled savagely: “Say, but don’t you cry. I’ll lick arry man that ’ud hurt yo’ brother!” “That is so sweet of you,” she said softly. “Then I fetched my piece down an’ axed him fur the countersign an’—wal,” he nodded his head up and down meaningly—“I got it!” He rolled up his sleeve and showed the red furrow of another across his arm. “Oh, I am so sorry—do—do come in and let mamma and me dress it.” Solomon laughed: “Now, don’t bother ’bout it, Miss—yo’ bein’ sorry has already cured it. I’d have it dressed but Gen’l ’ud find out an’ say I was a fool fur not shootin’.” But she dressed it—she and a stately White-haired one, bringing the salve and bandages out to his beat; and when they had finished and the smarting pain had ceased, Solomon belonged to them.