Two mountaineers stood in the cabin yard. One was middle-aged, sullen-eyed and stooped, but standing six feet with the stoop. He leaned on an unmounted axe-helm, and as he stood slouching, long armed, bowed in the legs, his hairy chest gleaming through open shirt front, he looked not unlike a great gorilla, brought to bay with uprooted club in his hands. The other man was not much more than a boy, except in size. He was larger, bigger chested, bigger fisted, and his wonder-haunted, kindly face wore a smile instead of a scowl. Never before had he seen the flag which one of the officers carried. Never such a horse as the one ridden by the man in front—never such a horse, and how he did love horses! But the thoroughbred shied at the sight of the bearded man and sprang sideways, snorting, and wheeled to run. The boy’s face broke over in a quizzical, familiar grin, and he drawled exultantly: “Say, Mister, whut yo ridin’ there?” The man turned sullenly and knocked him down with the axe-helm. He went down helplessly and with a subdued surprise in his blue eyes. The man did not turn his body, but stood indifferently, watching him slowly arising, wiping the blood from his forehead and whimpering like a struck cub: “Ef mammy hadn’t tuck an’ went an’ died—I promised mammy I’d nurver strike ye, dad.” He blew the blood from his nose and stood scratching one leg with the bare foot of the other, whimpering still, and dazed. “Solomon Hosea Hanks, ye’re a blatherin’ yearlin’ an’ ’ll allers be one. Ain’t I knocked ye down often fur buttin’ in ye horns befo’ ye’re axed up to the trough?” He was talking to the boy, but saying it for the men in front: “Gentlemen, ’light an’ look at yer saddles. I’m jes teachin’ the lad some manners—you hafter teach ’em to some folks with a club.” The boy suddenly straightened up. Half defiantly, and with quick eagerness, he leaped across the path where sat the color-bearer. He stopped beneath the flag and began to fondle it as a child would—the pretty stars, the gold cord that fell from the eagle above: “Ye’ll nurver knock me down ag’in, Dad. Ye’re a g’erriller an’ ye know it, an’ ye wanter make me one, but I’ve seen my country’s colors to-day an’ I’m goin’ ter jine.” He turned to the group: “I know whut you want, Mister-men, an’ I’ll lead you over the mount’in ef you’ll let me jine. ’Taint uverbody I’ll let knock me down”—he wagged his head at the man with whimpering apology—“promised mammy afo’ she tuck an’ went an’ died I’d nurver strike him”— A rattling volley of shots rang out across the mountain, down in the next valley. They were echoed back, then shouts, and when the General wheeled, the boy had struck out toward the firing, his tough, bare feet crounching the gravel as he strode on in his shambling way. They followed him, but could not overtake the long, swinging trot in the crooked path amid the boulders and clay roots. On a projection beyond the ridge he stopped, calling back to the man: