Motion Picture Story Magazine (Aug 1911-Jan 1912)

SPECIAL MESSENGER 43 ternative. Straight at the fence he urged his horse, and clear over it they flew. Like a flash, horse and rider plunged downward to the water, and beneath it, like divers. Bullets came like heavy raindrops when he rose, but he swam by the side of his horse until the spirited animal gained a footing, then mounted, and skirted the bank so close that the detachment opposing was obliged to follow in the stream to get at him. Milroy had the advantage of having explored every foot of the shore, and soon disappeared amid the enveloping foliage, but he realized that while he had ridden far and hard, there was more than one band of determined men, on fresh horses, in pursuit, and he must fail unless he could secure a new mount. His wife 's horse at Fairview ! He turned his tired hunter's head thru the woods toward home, when a volley from behind came with better aim than those directed near the stream. He felt the knife-like thrust of a bullet in his side and swayed in the saddle. It was all over ! No, there was a fighting chance ! He caught an overhanging bough, as his weary gray slacked speed, and drew himself up by a magnificent exhibition of strength, allowing the hunter to follow his own free will. The ruse succeeded. The Federal detachment swept by in pursuit of a horse running wild. Milroy dropped in a state of semiexhaustion from the branch and crawled away into the brush. There he dressed his wound with soldierly submission and dragged along painfully until he reached Fairview. The old house was so completely isolated by forest and rocky hills, so remote from main roads and traversable fields, that it had been given a wide berth by passing troops, and the family had remained at home undisturbed. Amid the insidious charms of antique furniture of quaint design, long worn comfortable, and the amplitude of Colonial chambers, Hester Milroy and her mother .held Fairview, aided by an old servant, who protected them against marauders during the murderous sway of military forces on all sides of their home. They were as unreached by the lust for blood and the groans of war's victims as the heartless wild flowers in the deep tangled wood, the pale primroses in the lane, or the gay little blades of grass bending to the sportive breeze, except when an officer in gray came with a requisition for blankets, and Hester longed to give him her swan'sdown quilts for the asking, because he was so gallant-looking. They were delicate women in appearance, with cameo faces framed in lustrous hair black and gray, still addicted to old silks and laces as to Chippendale furnishings, too far away from the trumpeting of politicians to realize why white men should kill each other by hundreds of thousands for the sake of a few black ones, and loyal from habit to the community of their birth and near ancestry. Into this refuge, redolent with home fragrance, Milroy crawled, making one last, desperate attempt to carry the news that should save his commanding officer. He managed to gain his feet before the ladies entered, and instructed the old servant to make no mention of his condition. ' ' Sorry to have disturbed you, ' ' he apologized to his wife and his motherin-law, with an attempt at a nonchalant smile, when they appeared, "but the fact is that I've had a ducking in trying to escape from the Yanks — they near had me at the river — and my horse is dead beat. May I ask the loan of yours while I carry the news to that devilish fine fellow Stuart that the bluecoats are surrounding him?" ' ' General Stuart in peril ! ' ' Hester exclaimed — the gay cavalry leader never lacked friends among her sex. "He's a goner!" Milroy explained, then he fainted. Meanwhile Federal troops were beating the woods in all directions to discover the daring scout who had escaped with knowledge that there was a detachment approaching Fairview. Milroy came out of his faint long