"What wuz you sayin' to Bub, thar?" her grandmother asked in anger. "I wuzn't sayin' nuthin' to nobuddy," Sarah replied. But Andrews' ears, sharper than the old woman's, sharpened by fear, had caught the words. "We-uns'll haf to go," he remarked. "You-uns haz bin right down good to us. Thanky, ma'am." "Jes' wait a minute," the old woman answered. "I'll give you somethin' fer yer to eat as ye mosey 'long." She walked slowly, apparently with pain, into the dark log-room. Sairey wrung her hand and whispered: "Run, run. Take the cart-track." Instantly the grandmother appeared on the threshold, her old eyes flashing, a double-barreled shot-gun in her shaking hands. She tried to cover both man and boy, as she screamed at them: "You-uns stay in yer tracks, you Yankees! My man'll know what to do with you-uns." Their guns were at her feet. There was no way to get them, even if they would have used them against a woman. "Run!" shouted Andrews and bounded towards the cart-track. Tom sprang after him, but not in time to escape a few birdshot which the old woman's gun sent flying after him. The sharp sting of them redoubled his speed. The second barrel sent its load far astray. They had run just in time, for from another hilltop behind the hut a dozen armed men came plunging down to the house, shouting after the scared fugitives. The raising of the flag had been the agreed-upon signal for their coming. Sairey's father and several other men had taken to the nearby hills to avoid being impressed into the Confederate army, but they adored the Confederacy, up to the point of fighting for it, and they would have rejoiced to capture Andrews and Tom. The old woman's eyes and ears had pierced the thin disguise of the raiders. So she had forced her granddaughter to fly the flag and the girl, afraid to disobey her fierce old grandmother but loath to see the boy she had liked at first sight captured, had warned him to flee. Man and boy were out of gunshot, but still in sight, when their pursuers reached the house, yelled with joy to see the abandoned guns, and ran up the cart-track like hounds hot upon the scent. As Tom and Andrews panted to the hilltop, they saw why Sairey had bidden them take the cart-track. At the summit, it branched into half a dozen lanes which wound through a pine forest. Lanes and woodlands were covered with pineneedles, the deposit of years, which rose elastic under their flying feet and left no marks by which they could be tracked. And beyond the forest was a vast laurel-brake in which a regiment could have hidden, screened from discovery save by chance. It gave the fugitives shelter and safety. Once they heard the far-off voices of their pursuers, but only once. Ere many hours they had the added security of the night.