She turned often to scan the shadowy figures that
moved from time to time in the light at the barn door.
Once she trod upon a stick, and it flopped, crackling
in the intolerable manner of all sticks. At this
noise, however, the guards at the barn made no sign.
Finally, she was where she could see the knot-holes
in the rear of the structure gleaming like pieces
of metal from the effect of the light within.
Scarcely breathing in her excitement she glided close
and applied an eye to a knot-hole. She had barely
achieved one glance at the interior before she sprang
back shuddering.
For the unconscious and cheerful sentry at the door
was swearing away in flaming sentences, heaping one
gorgeous oath upon another, making a conflagration
of his description of his troop-horse. “Why,”
he was declaring to the calm prisoner in grey, “you
ain’t got a horse in your hull ——
army that can run forty rod with that there little
mar’!”
As in the outer darkness Mary cautiously returned
to the knot-hole, the three guards in front suddenly
called in low tones: “S-s-s-h!” “Quit,
Pete; here comes the lieutenant.” The sentry
had apparently been about to resume his declamation,
but at these warnings he suddenly posed in a soldierly
manner.
A tall and lean officer with a smooth face entered
the barn. The sentry saluted primly. The
officer flashed a comprehensive glance about him.
“Everything all right?”
“All right, sir.”
This officer had eyes like the points of stilettos.
The lines from his nose to the corners of his mouth
were deep, and gave him a slightly disagreeable aspect,
but somewhere in his face there was a quality of singular
thoughtfulness, as of the absorbed student dealing
in generalities, which was utterly in opposition to
the rapacious keenness of the eyes which saw everything.
Suddenly he lifted a long finger and pointed.
“What’s that?”
“That? That’s a feed-box, I suppose.”
“What’s in it?”
“I don’t know. I—”
“You ought to know,” said the officer
sharply. He walked over to the feed-box and flung
up the lid. With a sweeping gesture he reached
down and scooped a handful of feed. “You
ought to know what’s in everything when you
have prisoners in your care,” he added, scowling.
During the time of this incident, the girl had nearly
swooned. Her hands searched weakly over the boards
for something to which to cling. With the pallor
of the dying she had watched the downward sweep of
the officer’s arm, which after all had only
brought forth a handful of feed. The result was
a stupefaction of her mind. She was astonished
out of her senses at this spectacle of three large
men metamorphosed into a handful of feed.
