firmly. The unknown peril is always the most terrifying.

"I did not want to frighten you, Miss Janice--" began the
interloper.

"Charles!" ejaculated the girl. "I mean, Colonel Brereton."

"I thought you 'd scarcely come into the stall, and hoped
to get away undiscovered."

"But what are you--I thought you were across--How
did you get here?"

"I had business to the northward," explained the officer,
"and meant to have been in Bound Brook by this time. But
the cursed snow came on, and, not having travelled the westerly
roads, I thought best to keep to those with which I was
familiar, though knowing full well that I ran the risk of landing
in the arms of the British. Fortunately their troops are no
fonder of facing our American weather than our American
riflemen, and tucked themselves within doors, leaving it to
us--" There the aide checked his flow of words.

"But why did you come here?"

Brereton laughed. "Does not a runaway servant always
turn horse thief? My mare has covered near forty miles to-day,
the last ten of it in the face of this storm, and so I left her
at the Van Meter barn, and thought to borrow Joggles to ride
on to Morristown to do the rest." Colonel Brereton's hand,