He said: "Why do you arrest me?"
The Sergeant replied: "You will know that soon enough. You are now going
to your own home. Tomorrow you will keep your word and go to David
Humphrey's place; the next day I will come for you. Which do you choose:
to ride with me to-night to the barracks and know why you are arrested,
or go, unknowing, as I bid you, and keep your word with the girl?"
Through Aleck's fevered brain, there ran the words of the song he sang
before--
"Out from your vineland come
Into the prairies wild;
Here will we make our home,
Father, mother, and child."
He could have but one answer.
At the door of his home the Sergeant left him with the words, "Remember
you are on parole."
Aleck noticed as the Sergeant rode away that the face of the sky had
changed, and slight gusts of wind had come up. At any other time his
mind would have dwelt upon the fact. It did not do so now.
Christmas Day came. People said that the fiercest night, since the
blizzard day of 1863, had been passed.
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