“Parole?” mused Dad reflectively. “I ought to, I suppose. I ought to demand your sacred word of honor that you’ll never again draw sword in the Cause you think is right. That you go back home, eating your heart out, while your brothers are at the front. “But I’ve had much those same things happen to me in my time. And it’s a hell I wouldn’t send my worst enemy through. “No, Mister Confed, I’m not going to parole you or any other man. As far as I’m concerned, you’re free to do what you want to.” “Do you mean that I--” “By the way,” went on Dad, “I had my grandson borrow your horse. I’m sorry. It was a military necessity. You can take that sorrel over there in its place. The horse is foundered, I’m afraid, but your regimental farrier can bring him back to condition in a day or so. And he’s got good blood and plenty of speed in him.” “You mean, suh,” muttered the captain, dazed, “that after capturing me you’ll give me not only my freedom but a horse, as well?” “I’ve tried to make it plain,” said Dad patiently. The captain made as though to speak; then turned his head abruptly away. When he faced Dad again, the look of physical pain in the sleepy eyes was all but effaced by one of utter shame. “It is only fair to tell you, suh,” he began jerkily, his glance downcast, like a scolded schoolboy, “it’s only fair to tell you that I had every intention, a while back, of taking you and your orderly prisoner and turning you over to our provost marshal to be shipped off to prison.” “Well,” responded Dad, “suppose you had? That is your affair. Every man to his own whim. Perhaps when you get to my age, friend, you’ll think twice before sticking a harmless old codger and a little boy into the living death of a war prison. Or perhaps you won’t. It is your own affair, as I told you. And now let me finish with those hurts of yours. I must be on my way.” Briskly, if a whit stiffly, he went on with his “first aid” work. The Confederate, as in a trance, sat still, and let his conqueror work over him. He seemed for the time bereft of the power of speech. Emp, ordered back by his master and scolded by Dad for interfering, had sat gravely on the hillock top, and with cocked head and critical eye had surveyed the combat below. Still brooding over Jimmie’s defection and the cruel order not to follow, the dog remained on the hilltop and, the fight being over, fell to studying the world at large in the hope of seeing his master return, penitent at his act of desertion, and make friends with him again. But Jimmie did not come back. Once Emp thought the boy was drawing near, for his keen-pricked ears caught the sound of approaching horse-hoofs. A second of listening, however, told him that these hoofs were walking; not galloping. Also, that there were several horses approaching in single file and from a direction opposite to that in which Jimmie had vanished.