She had left the thick of the crowd behind some distance, and was going along at a fair pace, over a clear road, studying all the while the line of fires far to her right, in an attempt to discover a promising dark gap in their extent.
She was startled by a hand laid upon her bridle, and a voice saying: "Say, Sis, who mout ye be, an' whar mout ye be a-mosyin' ter this time o' night ?" She saw a squad of brigandish-looking stragglers at her mare's head.
"My name's Polly Briggs.

I live on the South Fork o' Overall's Creek.
I've done been ter Dr.Thacker's in Murfreesboro, fur some medicine fur my sick mammy, an' I'm on my way back home, an' I'd be much obleeged ter ye, gentlemen, ef ye'd 'low me ter go on, kase mammy's powerful sick, an' she's in great hurry fur her medicine." She said this with a coolness and a perfect imitation of the speech and manner of the section that surprised herself.

As she ended she looked directly at the squad, and inspected them.

She saw she had reason to be alarmed.

They were those prowling wolves found about all armies, to whom war meant only wider opportunities for all manner of villainy and outrage.