Mississippi Raider by J.T. Edson Page B

putting the scheme they
had produced into effect.
    Coming to their feet on
genuinely wobbling legs due to their now-enfeebled state after
another session of rolling around on the floor of the ring, the
disheveled and close-to-exhausted pair staggered apart. However,
their separation was brief. Moving in, each swung a punch in a
manner redolent of their physically drained condition.
Nevertheless, like the blows and kicks they had essayed earlier,
with Belle contriving to pull her own as effectively and comparatively
harmlessly as Roxanne was doing despite having had no training in
such matters, the punch that each launched was delivered in an
authentic-seeming fashion.
    The fact that the pair swung
with much less than their earlier vigor was accepted by the
spectators as being excusable under the circumstances. Arriving
almost simultaneously in closer to a push than a blow, the
simulated attacks allowed the recipients to go down on their backs
and lie with limbs spread-eagled, as if they had been rendered
unconscious. Having examined them, Hislop declared that neither
would be able to resume the fighting and, therefore, the bout was a
draw. Calling for applause for two very gallant ladies, de-Farge
stated that in view of the indecisive result, Madame Mask would not
have her features exposed. Before any objections could be raised,
he asked whether a second bout would be welcomed and the
affirmative response ensured that Belle ’s participation would never be
discovered.
    It was, although neither the girl nor the
gambler realized the point, an example of the lengths to which she
would be willing to go to achieve her ends when she became the
Rebel Spy.

Chapter Nine – You Could Be What I Want
    “ I’m really sorry,
Belle,” Colonel Myles Raines declared, I looking as impassively as
he could manage at the slender and straight-backed beautiful girl
who was standing on the other side of his desk. He had known her
family for years and was aware that she was not more than three
years older than his daughter, Louise. x For all that, she had an air of
quietly grim determination beyond her years, and he could
sympathize with her reasons for coming to see him even though he
was unable to give her the assistance she required. “But there
really is nothing I can do to help you.”
    “ But
there must be some way I can serve,” Belle Boyd insisted, having told her
reason for coming to Richmond, Virginia, without holding back the
fact that she wanted to find and take revenge upon the men who had
killed her parents.
    With the completion of one specialized side
of her education and having repaid her debt to Captain Anatol
de-Farge for it by providing him with a very well received piece of
entertainment, the girl had felt she was at last ready to commence
her quest after Alfred Tollinger and George Barmain. Despite having
been spurred on by Mattie Jonias, whose authority had not
diminished while she was recovering from the wound received on the
night of the attack upon Baton Roy ale Manor, the Negroes who
worked the riverboats and did the necessary traveling were unable
to find out more than that the pair had gone northward for some
undiscovered destination. Therefore, especially with the
commencement of hostilities between what amounted to the Southern
and Northern states, she had accepted that she must take up the
pursuit herself.
    Satisfied that she could leave
her family ’s
plantation and workforce in the capable hands of Colonel Dennis
Thatcher and his wife Margaret, Belle had gathered what she would
want for the expedition—including the garments modified as was
suggested by de-Farge and the items for self-protection he had
supplied—and had set out upon her mission of vengeance. Accepting
that to attempt anything in Baton Bayou Parish or the surrounding
area would achieve nothing, she had headed for the place she
concluded would offer her the kind of contacts to serve her needs.
Her first attempts to see the kind of senior