TWO:A familiar friendship lighted every countenance but mine as this second pair turned and rode with us, the lieutenant in front on Sergeant Jim Longley's right, and the two privates with me between them behind. For some minutes the sergeant, in under-tone, made report to his young superior. Then in a small clearing he turned abruptly into a neighborhood road, and at his word my two companions pricked after him westward. I closed up beside the lieutenant; he praised the weather, and soon our talk was fluent though broken, as we moved sometimes at a trot and often faster. In stolen moments I scanned him with the jealousy of my youth. Five feet, ten; humph! I was five, nine and a thirty-second. In weight he looked to be just what I always had in mind in those prayers without words with which I mounted every pair of commissary scales I came to. The play of his form as our smooth-gaited horses sped through the flecking shades was worth watching for its stanch and supple grace. Alike below the saddle and above it he was as light as a leaf and as firm as a lance. I had long yearned to own a pair of shoulders not too square for beauty nor too sloping for strength, and lo, here they were, not mine, but his. No matter; the slender mustache he sported he was welcome to, I had shaved off nearly as good a one; wished now I hadn't. As once or twice he lifted his kpi to the warm breeze I took new despair from the soft locks of darkest chestnut that lay on his head in manly order, ready enough to curl but waiving the privilege.
TWO:"Aw, come, now, Dick, you know every bit as well as I know. Well, when I told her I was going I didn't dream I was going to tell her anything else; I give you my word! Where in the"--same place again--"I ever got the courage I'll never tell you, but all of a sudden thinks I, 'I'm never going to get anything but no, anyhow, and so, Dick, I've been and gone and done it!"Again he laughed.
TWO:
TWO:He was within easy range and was still trotting nearer. I snatched up my carbine, aimed, and then recovered, looking sharply to my left as if restrained by the command of some one behind the canes. The Federal's cool daring filled me with admiration. Had the foes he was looking for been actually in hiding here they could have picked him out of his saddle like a bird off a bush. His only chance was that they would not let themselves be teased into firing prematurely on any one man or six. Ferry beckoned me. I mounted and trotted down the woods side of the fence, at the same time the Federal's six men approached from three directions, and down the road the main column entered upon the scene.He sat down on the hearth-rug in front of her chair, and looked round the room.