Gripped by a sudden pity for the helpless flag he had loved and followed for four years, Dan made an impetuous dash from out the pines, and tearing the colours from the pole, tossed them over his arm as he retreated rapidly to cover. At the instant he held his life as nothing beside the faded strip of silk that wrapped about his body. The cause for which he had fought, the great captain he had followed, the devotion to a single end which had kept him struggling in the ranks, the daily sacrifice, the very poverty and cold and hunger, all these were bound up and made one with the tattered flag upon his arm. Through the belt of pines, down the muddy road, across the creek and up the long hill, he fell back breathlessly, loading and firing as he went, with his face turned toward the enemy. At the end he became like a fox before the hunters, dashing madly over the rough ground, with the colours blown out behind him, and the quick shots ringing in his ears. Then, as if by a single stroke, Lee's army vanished from the trampled broom-sedge and the strip of pines. The blue brigades closed upon the landscape and when they opened there were only a group of sullen prisoners and the sound of stray shots from the scattered soldiers who had fought their way beyond the stream. IX IN THE HOUR OF DEFEAT As the dusk fell Dan found himself on the road with a little company of stragglers, flying from the pursuing cavalry that drew off slowly as the darkness gathered. He had lost his regiment, and, as he went on, he began calling out familiar names, listening with strained ears for an answer that would tell of a friend's escape. At last he caught the outlines of a gigantic figure relieved on a hillock against the pale green west, and, with a shout, he hurried through the swarm of fugitives, and overtook Pinetop, who had stooped to tie his shoe on with a leather strap. “Thank God, old man!” he cried. “Where are the others?” Pinetop, panting yet imperturbable, held out a steady hand. “The Lord knows,” he replied. “Some of 'em air here an' some ain't. I was goin' back agin to git the flag, when I saw you chased like a fox across the creek with it hangin' on yo' back. Then I kinder thought it wouldn't do for none of the regiment to answer when Marse Robert called, so I came along right fast and kep' hopin' you would follow.” “Here I am,” responded Dan, “and here are the colours.” He twined the silk more closely about his arm, gloating over his treasure in the twilight. Pinetop stretched out his great rough hand and touched the flag as gently as if it were a woman. “I've fought under this here thing goin' on four years now,” he said, “and I reckon when they take it prisoner, they take me along with it.” “And me,” added Dan; “poor Granger went down, you know, just as I took it from him. He fell fighting with the pole.”