FORE:He led the horse to a rock, mounted him, and started up the road. He reached the point where the road to the house turned off, and was debating whether he should go farther or turn the horse loose there, when he saw a company of cavalry coming up the main road from the other directionthat toward Bridgeport. Though they wore blue overcoats, he had learned enough about army life to not trust this implicitly, so he prudently rode into the woods to watch them until he could make sure. The company came up to where the roads parted, and he overheard a man who rode by the Captain at the head, and who wore a semi-soldier costume and seemed to be a scout or guide, tell the Captain:"Have you bit it off, or did some girl, that you bolted off in such a hurry to see, drain you so dry o' talk that you haint got a word left? Who is she? What does she look like? What made you in sich a dreadful hurry to see her? You didn't go clear up to Bad Ax, did you, and kill that old widower?"