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."

"Wall, it's a better way than most," Pinetop replied, "an' when the angel
begins to foot up my account on Jedgment Day, I shouldn't mind his cappin'
the whole list with 'he lost his life, but he didn't lose his flag.' To
make a blamed good fight is what the Lord wants of us, I reckon, or he
wouldn't have made our hands itch so when they touch a musket."

Then they trudged on silently, weak from hunger, sickened by defeat. When,
at last, the disorganized column halted, and the men fell to the ground
upon their rifles, Dan kindled a fire and parched his corn above the coals.
After it was eaten they lay down side by side and slept peacefully on the
edge of an old field.

For three days they marched steadily onward, securing meagre rations in a
little town where they rested for a while, and pausing from time to time,
to beat off a feigned attack. Pinetop, cheerful, strong, undaunted by any
hardship, set his face unflinchingly toward the battle that must clear a
road for them through Grant's lines. Had he met alone a squadron of cavalry
in the field, he would, probably, have taken his stand against a pine, and
aimed his musket as coolly as if a squirrel were the mark. With his sunny
temper, and his gloomy gospel of predestination, his heart could swell with
hope even while he fought single-handed in the face of big battalions. What
concerned him, after all, was not so much the chance of an ultimate victory
for the cause, as the determination in his own mind to fight it out as long
as he had a cartridge remaining in his box. As his fathers had kept the
frontier, so he meant, on his own account, to keep Virginia.

On the afternoon of the third day, as the little company drew near to
Appomattox Court House, it found the road blocked with abandoned guns, and
lined by exhausted stragglers, who had gone down at the last halting place.
As it filed into an open field beyond a wooded level, where a few campfires
glimmered, a group of Federal horsemen clattered across the front, and, as
if by instinct, the column formed into battle line, and the hand of every
man was on the trigger of his musket.

"Don't fire, you fools!" called an officer behind them, in a voice sharp
with irritation. "The army ha