CHAPTER XI
WHAT WE OVERHEARD
I COULD feel the trembling of her body, and for an instant my brain seemed to reel with dizziness. The danger confronting us was not so much mine as hers; my uniform might possibly save me, or, at least, prevent my suffering from anything more unpleasant than capture, but there was no such hope for the girl. These men were not soldiers but desperadoes, the scum of the hills, and they had come actuated by one object only—the possession of Major Harwood's daughter. What the real purpose of the Cowans might be I could not even conjecture, but this night raid was, beyond all doubt, a part of that same foul plot which had involved the cowardly murder of the father. That had been the work of the elder Cowan, and now had come the turn of the son. Here was the culmination of the feud between the two families, the blood-anger which had smouldered for years, finally to find fit expression in this outrage under the guise of war. With the Major dead, and his only child married to Anse Cowan—whether by force, or otherwise—
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