Page:Randall Parrish - The Red Mist.djvu/41



AYLOR stood at the foot of the steps, pausing in uncertainty.

"Is that you, Sam?"

"Yas, sah, but I don't just make out who you gentl'men am, sah."

"Well, never mind thet now. Is Mister Harwood, yere?"

I insensibly straightened in my saddle. Harwood? What Harwood, I wondered—surely not Major Harwood of Lewisburg, my father's old friend! What was it I had heard about him a few months ago? Wasn't it a rumor that he was on General Ramsay's staff? And the daughter—Noreen—whatever had become of her? There was an instant's vision before me of laughing eyes, and wind-blown hair, a galloping horse, and the wave of a challenging hand. She had thus swept by me on the road as I took my mother southward.

"I don't peer fer to recollect no such name, sah," replied the negro, scratching his wool thoughtfully. "I done reckon as how you got the wrong house." 27