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THE WAR LIBRARY.
. 5
they whipped out the barkers and made to-
ward the man who had intruded upon this
second attempt to get the secret of Chloris.
When the mysterious captain entered, he
looked like one who has not the remotest
idea of an encounter.
But when the men made the quick ad-
vance upon him, with the thumbs of their
left hands on the hammers of their revolvers,
there was a remarkable transformation.
There was 1 flash of steel in the air, rapid
as the lightning from the clouds.
The sword of the captain was out.
More. Ere the astonished pair could un-
derstand how it was done, the keen point
performed agleaming cut—a double cut—and
the heavy revolvers were dashed from their
hands, one exploding as it went spinning
through the air to the opposite side of the
cabin.
The man of mystery with white hair did
not have much time to contemplate his mas-
terly stroke, however.
Quickly again—and there were hot oaths
inthe air of the apartment now—more re-
volvers appeared in murderous hand.
Again the thumbs were on the hammers.
Again the sword flashed and circled—
this time utterly disabling a hand of one of
the wretches, who sent forth a cry of pain.
Then the sword of. the white-haired man
, Seemed imbued with the lightning’s life in-
deed,
Above and around the villains it swept and
circled.
But they, used to “‘snap’’ warfare, had
drawn their bayonets on the defensive now,
and the combatants began circling around
the limited floor of the cabin, while the
clashing steel resounded and struck sparks
here and there.
Not another word spoke the strange man
in the blue.
Slowly there came into his dead, black orbs
the fire of aferocity that was terrible, and
his lips compressed with an expression that
told he meant to kill.
The pair who fought him, perceived that
a few moments more of the unequal warfare
“must result in their defeat, and perhaps
death—for no opportunity had they to draw
other revolvers from their plentifully sup-
plied belts.
Suddenly, and at a moment when they
were nearest the door, they madea dash in
concert for the outside, which they reached,
just as the sweeping sword cut a huge slice
from the worm-eaten jamb.
For the moment the white-haired seemed
imbued with an ungovernable anger, for he
cried, shaking the fist of his left hand after
the routed pair:
“Go, you cowards of a false cause! Ay,
flee, though you are two to one! BucI shill
yet kill many a one of you who wear the
hated gray!”’
Sheathing his sword, he turned toward the
occupants of the room,
His first words were addressed to Uarla.
““Why do you hold your hands behind
your back?”
“ Because they are bound tightly,” she re-
Hat”
He quickly stepped toher side and twirled
her around.
From his bosom he produced a keen knife
and applied the edge to the twisted yarn,
severing it.
Uarla, while uttering her thanks, stopped
and picked up her two revolvers where they
had been laying since dropped by her recent
captors. .
The white-haired. man turned to Chloris,
who lay regarding him strangely.
“T have come again,” he said.
**And what can you want now?’
“The information you promised me.’
“T cannot give it.”
“But you promised.”
“True, The time, though, has not ar-
rived.”
Raymond passed one hand over bis brow.
With eyes bent on the floor, he mur-
mured:
“ How long, oh, how long? Will thecloud
never go by? But there, there, I will be-
lieve you”’—with a sudden gesture—‘and 1
will comeagaiu. Yes, I will come again.”
Thus speaking singularly, he wheeled and
hurried from the cabin,
Uarla saw him pause outside and glance
around, as if iying tosee some sign of the
late pair who had been there.
Then he strode off.
“Chloris, whois that man?”
‘Oh, he’s a strange one,’’ was the unsatis-
' factory response.
“Yes, [suppose so. But look you, Chloris,
73
aw ate
he has this day made certain remarks to me
that I mean to investigate.”
“Remarks? What kind of remarks?”
“That I was the image of a woman who
was once his wife——"’
‘“*Hal he said that?”
“cc Yes, ”
“Do not mind him, my child. Can’t you
see? Why, he’s daft. Captain Horace Ray-
mond is out of his mind—poor man!”
Chloris turned her face toward the wall.
But the girl was watching her. And into
her mind there came a conviction that the
utterances of the mysterious captain were
not all mystery to this woman whom she
had only known since she and the man who
was supposed to be her father had come into
the vicinity of Gettysburg.
“The secret which this woman possesses
shall be mine,” resolved Uarla, as she looked
upon the averted head of Chloris.
What more might have passed between
ihe uwo, was interrupted by another shadow
that fell across the doorway.
The girl looked up to see Dorn Dullam
standing there.
On his brow there was a trace of recently
wiped off blood.
She seemed to take his arrival with the
coolness of one who expected just this oc-
currence.
“Were you badly hurt?”
“No, girl, fortunately.”
And then, while his shrewd eyes turned
alternately upon her and the woman on the
ed :
“Who has been here? What has hap-
pened?”
Brietly she told him all.
The recount of the adventure with the
evil pair attired in gray did not seem to in-
terest him.
But when she mentioned the man in blue
with the white hair, he took a step forward,
and cried:
“Curse him, I say! Do you hear ?—curse
this man in blue!”
foran instant he turned his bearded
face away from her, as if to hide a look of
passion that came into the bloodshot eyes.
CHAPTER VI.
TUE SECRET OF THE FIREPLACE.
A momentary silence prevailed in the
cabin.
Through that silence came tho roar of the
distant battle over the hills, where now the
fresh divisions of the Confederate General
Early, coming into action from the direction
of York, were met amid the woody crests by
Barlow. .
Newer carnage for the day of July 1 that
was growing fiercer and fiercer.
And now to the north, the northwest and
the west boomed the cannon and volleyed
the musketry where arose the columns and
billows of smoke, with here and there au
interval through which gleamed the charg-
ing bayonets of the blue and the gray by
savage turns.
Down from Oak Hill now thundered the
Confederate artillery.
Bravely fought the boys in blue; but
back, back they were forced, with, at last,
the intrepid leader, Barlow himself, wound-
ed under that terrible cannonade.
It was near three o’clock.
Still on came the seemingly invincible
horde of gray.
And then sounded something above the
battle’s roar that was likea very knell to
the Union line, asit told of Rhodes having
broken through the center and sweeping
away, as it were, the First corps.
Never did Southern yell rise louder—sel-
dom have the yells of combatants on such
fields been of sufficient volume to awake a
note above the roar around,
But now itdid so. -
Back—back toward the town were falling
the Union troops.
¢ was a rout—a panic.
Bullets, cannon-balls—the shining bayo-
nets of a victoriousand unsparing foe were
coming on, on, on, and it would have seemed
that nothing could save the lines of blue
from the disaster that was close at their
heels until—
* Hancock!’
The word—a single word rung along the
masses of confusion as the gallant general
Was seen spurring forward tothe very center
of the flying soldiery,
Steinwher’s division, fortunately held in
reserve, served the magnetic leader now.
With this and a bold front of Buford’'s
cavalry, already worn by the shock of the
earlier conflict, Hancock met the oncoming
Confederates at the Gettysburg ridge.
But again the firm front was presented.
Though the butternut waves were coming,
there was yeta grim array tomeet them.
And while the guns boomed on, and while
the reverberating wavesof the musketry sent
their echoes over hills deep into the shady
dingles, the little scene at the cabin pro-
gressed.
Dorn Dullam turned again to the girl.
“Look you,” he said, ina tove she had
never heard from him before, in addresses
to herself. “If you come across that man
again, avoid him. Do you hear?”
“* Why should I avoid him?”
“Because he will do you no good."
“Tam notso sure of that. I have a suse
picion, Dullam.”” :
As on 2 previous occasion, we hear her ad~
dress him ina way that would be strange
for a daughter in speaking to a father.
“What suspicion can you have, girl?
Have Inot told you enough to satisfy all
curiosity ?”
“
A moment’s silence ensued.
“TTear—hear!’’ cried Chloris from the
bed. ‘Some onehas been putting nonsense
into the girl’s head. She must have seen the
white-haired——”’ :
“Wush!’’ he admonished, sternly.
And turning againto Uarla, be said, with
a strange intenseness:
“My girl, you have met the white-haired
man, for you told meso. Now I say to you
that you are nothing to him—he is ‘nothing
toyou. Forget him.” .
Uarla advanced to a. position directly be-
fore Dullam.
*“Youhave led me a singular life,” she
said. ‘You havealways taught me to be-
lieve that you were my father. But while
you have done that, you have also taken
pains to impress upon me the importance—-
remarkable importance—of acting at times
as though there did not exist that relation-
ship between us.
“ By years of obedience to that command,
Ihave even forgotten myself when, perhaps,
I should not have done so.
‘Look, [have addressed you to-day sev-
eral times as if you were nomore to me than
some mere acquaintance.
“Tell me, Dorn Dullam, what is the mys-
tery in which I have found myself so much
of late. Are you my father, indeed?”
“Why, of course Iam,”
“T doubt it.”
“ What?’ :
As he thus exclaimed, he took a step to-
ward her and half clinched one fist as if he
could have stricken her a blow.
Unflinchingly she stood before him.
“Strike,” she bantered.,
_Adding, with a curl of her handsome
=
ps:
“You know me better than to do sucha
thing, Dorn Dullam.”
r a few seconds they eyed one an-
other.
“Bah” he burst forth. “Idon’t want to
strike you, Uarla.”
* You know better.”
There was evidently a struggle within the
breast of the man.
He half turned from her, and his bearded
features were working with the effort to
control himself.
Uarla brought him back to the subject.
Her next words produceda wonderful ef-
ect.
“T have half a mind to believe, Dorn Dull-
am, that the man with the white hair, who
is haunting my path, is——””
‘“*Ts what?” he broke in, even fiercely.
“No matter,” in a peculiarly subdued
voice. . .
At this pointin the dialogue old Chloris
uttered a succession of groans.
‘My poor feet—my poor feet! Ah—oh, [
fear I shall never be able to walk any
more.” .
Dullam raised a hand on high.
It was a signal—such a signal as Uarla had
seen and known the meaning of on many an
oceasion before. . :
Danger, said the upraised hand.
For as the girl had said when meeting so
boldly the stragglers who had robbed
Dullam of his stores, the two had played a
strange part in the lines of the Union
army. .
Approaching along the Run Road was the
van of a butternut regiment, making for
the crossing at therailroad bed.
It was hardly likely that so humble a
cabin as the home of old Chloris, would at-
tract either officers or men: but recognizing
in them a portion of the detached regiments
from Rhodes’ command which was march-
ing by way of the west of Willoughby