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single storied with a sparsely furnished sitting room and a bedroom and kitchen each. In common with their outward appearance, they were neatly kept and extremely clean, but loose hinges, warped boards and sagging shelves witnessed the long absence of men to attend to such chores.
    “What the hell’s happening?” Bell wanted to know as the Captain assigned his section of the troop to keep watch from the windows.
    Hedges peered out through a cracked pane at the street. “You know the facts of life, trooper?” he hissed.
    “Aw, come on, Captain,” Bell answered. “You let me out with those dames and I’ll show you.”
    “So how come there’s that many women in this town and no kids around?”
    Douglas was guarding the kitchen window at the rear. “Hey, I never thought of that!” he exclaimed.
    Hedges grinned mirthlessly out at the empty street as he heard the church door slam shut. Then a bolt was shot home. “That’s because when you men got screwing on your minds, you can’t think.”
    Rhett was in the bedroom. His nervousness could be heard in his voice. “And if they really trusted us, they’d be no reason to keep the children hidden?”
    “Smart,” Hedges complimented with heavy sarcasm. “And if you could count as well you’d know that one of our horses and one of the women have gone.”
    “Man!” Bell breathed.
    “I figure more than one,” Hedges responded in low tones.
    “Why, Captain?” Rhett called anxiously from the bedroom. “I can’t figure any of this. Georgia’s Rebel land. You reckon those women realized we’re Union?”
    “I ain’t doing anymore figuring until I see who the missing woman brings back with her,” Hedges answered. “Now cut out the yakking. We’re supposed to be sleeping.”
    Bell swallowed hard, his eyes swiveling up and down the street narrowing against the glare of sunlight, coming wide to peer into the deep shadows thrown by buildings. “Suddenly I ain’t tired,” he whispered to himself.
    For an hour nothing moved in the tiny town and the sole noise came from the stream in its ceaseless rush to tumble down to the foot of the rise. Then the seven troopers heard a sound invade the silence from far off: and as it grew steadily in volume they were able to pin down the direction. It was coming from the north-west. And moments later, just before it came to an abrupt end, they identified it. A group of horsemen riding at the gallop.
    In the last house but one on the street, Frank Forrest bared his crooked, tobacco-stained teeth in an evil grin. “Figure to creep up on us, Billy,” he said softly.
    Seward nodded and checked the action of his Spencer. “How many you reckon, Frank?”
    “Sure ain’t no regiment,” the sergeant answered. “Don’t figure they’ll give us much trouble.”
    Forrest was at one of the front windows of the house, Seward at the other. Scott crouched in the bedroom. Each man had been fighting drowsiness in the heat and silence of the waiting: but now they were alert, keyed up for action - even exhilarated by the prospect of renewed killing.
    A similar pulse of excited anticipation throbbed in the hearts of the eleven men advancing up the slope on the town side of the stream, from where their horses were held by the woman who summoned them. Their ages spanned a broad spectrum, from very young to past sixty, their builds from short and rotund to tall and emaciated and their garb from disheveled Confederate uniforms to ill-used denim. But despite the obvious differences between them, there was a certain uniformity about the men which could be identified in the set of their grizzled faces and the haunted, deep-set eyes. For here could be seen the look of the hunted, cowering behind the thin veneer of triumph as the fugitive sensed a much sought reversal.
    And as the men drew nearer their objective, the desire for revenge showed most vividly in the dark, red-veined eyes of their leader, Bill Terry. For it was in him that the seeds of