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Harcourt that as he had found nothing to convict him of treason against the Confederate government, he might go this time, but to be d-d careful in the future, or he would get him yet. He then slammed the door behind him, rejoined his companions who mounted their horses and rode slowly away.
Satisfied that they had left, the family ventured to express their congratulations at the departure of their unwelcome visitors, and at once set to work rearranging the disordered room.
They, however, felt that this was only the commencement of their prosecutions, and they well knew that another time, the chances were that they would not escape so easily; for should it become known that their son was in the Federal army, they could no longer hope to live in peace and safety.
The men who had visited them on this occasion, were evidently strangers in the neighborhood, and were, no doubt, a scouting or foraging party, who had stopped more from a want of having anything else to do, than from a desire to do them any injury.
They, however, knew, that from those in their own vicinity, there was much more to be feared; and of one person in particular, they stood in especial dread.
That person was Dan McCowan, the man whose name was mentioned by Mary Harcourt, in her warning to her father, only a moment before the soldiers, had entered their dwelling.
Dan McCowan was a man who for years had pursued the detestable calling of a negro-hunter.
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