Unvanquished

would reach the bivouac at supper-time, because Granny and Ringo had found out that that was the best tune—that the stock would all be handy, and the men would be too hungry or sleepy or something to think very quick in case they happened to think, and we would just have time to get the mules and get out of sight before dark came. Then, if they should decide to chase us, by the time they found us in the dark, there wouldn't be anything but the wagon with me and Granny in it to capture.

So we did; only this time it was a good thing we did. We left Ab Snopes and his men in the woods beyond the bivouac, and Granny and Ringo and I drove up to Colonel Newberry's tent at exactly the right tune, and Granny passed the sentry and went into the tent, walk­ing thin and straight, with the shawl over her shoulders and Mrs. Compson's hat on her head and the parasol in one hand and hers and Ringo's General Smith order in the other, and Ringo and I sat in the wagon and looked at the cook fires about the grove and smelled the coffee and the meat. It was always the same. Granny would disappear into the tent or the house, and then, hi about a minute, somebody would holler inside the tent or the house, and then the sentry at the door would holler, and then a sergeant, or even sometimes an officer, only it would be a lieutenant, would hurry into the tent or

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the house, and then Ringo and I would hear somebody cursing, and then they would all come out, Granny walk­ing straight and stiff and not looking much bigger than Cousin Denny at Hawkhurst, and three or four mad Yankee officers behind her, and getting madder all the time. Then they would bring up the mules, tied together. Granny and Ringo could guess to the second now; it would be just enough light left to tell that they were mules, and Granny would get into the wagon and Ringo would hang his legs over the tail gate, holding the lead rope, and we would go on, not fast, so that when we came back to where Ab Snopes and his men waited in the woods you could not even tell that they were mules. Then Ringo would get onto the lead mule and they would turn off into the woods and Granny and I would go on home.

That's what we did this tune; only this time it hap­pened. We couldn't even see our own team when we heard them coming, the galloping hoofs. They came up fast and mad; Granny jerked up quick and straight, holding Mrs. Compson's parasol.

'Damn that Ringo!' she said. 'I had my doubts about this time all the while.'

Then they were all around us, like the dark itself had fallen down on us, full of horses and mad men shouting 'Halt! Halt! If they try to escape, shoot the team!' with me and Granny sitting in the wagon and men jerking the team back and the team jerking and clashing in the traces, and some of them hollering 'Where are the mules? The mules are gone!' and the officer cursing and shouting 'Of course they are gone!' and cursing Granny and the darkness and the men and mules. Then somebody struck a light and we saw the officer sitting his horse beside the wagon while one of the soldiers lit one light-wood splinter from another.

'Where are the mules?' the officer shouted.

'What mules?' Granny said.

'Don't lie to me!' the officer shouted. 'The mules you just left camp with on that forged order! We have got you this tune! We knew you'd turn up again. Orders went out to the whole department to watch for you a month ago! That damn Newberry had his copy in his

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pocket while you were talking to him.' He cursed Colonel Newberry now. 'They ought to let you go free and court-martial him! Where's the nigger boy and the mules, Mrs. Plurella Harris?'

'I don't know what you are talking about,' Granny said. 'I have no mules except this team I am driving. And my name is Rosa Millard. I am on my way home be­yond Jefferson.'

The officer began to laugh; he sat on the horse, laughing. 'So that's your real name, hey? Well, well, well. So you have begun to tell the truth at last. Come now, tell me where those mules are, and tell me where the others you have stolen from us are hid.'

Then Ringo hollered. He and Ab Snopes and the mules had turned off into the woods on the right side of the road, but when he hollered now he was on the left side. 'Heyo the road!' he hollered. 'One busted loose! Head um off the road!'

And that was all of that. The soldier dropped the light-wood splinter and the officer whirled his horse, already spurring him, hollering, 'Two men stay here.' Maybe they all thought he meant two others, because there was just a big noise of bushes and trees like a cyclone was going through them, and then Granny and ,1 were sitting in the wagon like before we had even heard the hoofs.

'Come on,' Granny said. She was already getting out of the wagon.

'Are we going to leave the team and wagon?' I said. 'Yes,' Granny said. 'I misdoubted this all the tune.' We could not see at all in the woods; we felt our way, and me helping Granny along and her arm didn't feel any bigger than a pencil almost, but it wasn't trem­bling. 'This is far enough,' she said. I found a log and we sat down. Beyond the road we could hear them thrashing around, shouting and cursing. It sounded far away now. 'And the team too,' Granny said.

'But we have nineteen new ones,' I said. 'That makes two hundred and forty-eight.' It seemed like a long time, sitting there on the log in the dark. After a while they came back, we could hear the officer cursing and the horses crashing and thumping back into the

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road. And then he found the wagon was empty and he cursed sure enough—Granny and me, and the two men he had told to stay there. He was still cursing while they turned the wagon around. Then they went away. After a while we couldn't hear them. Granny got up and we felt our way back to the road, and we went on, too, toward home. After a while I persuaded her to stop and rest, and while we were sitting beside the road we heard the buggy coming. We stood up, and Ringo saw us and stopped the buggy.

'Did I holler loud enough?' he said

'Yes,' Granny said. Then she said, 'Well?'

'All right,' Ringo said. 'I told Ab Snopes to hide out with them in Hickahala bottom until tomorrow night. All 'cep' these two.'