The Little Shepherd of Kingdom Come Part 29

"I congratulate you on your luck or your good judgment always to be on hand when disagreeable duties are to be done."

Chad flushed.

"Won't you take the flag down?"

"No, make your attack. You will have one of your usual victories-with overwhelming numbers-and it will be safe and bloodless. There are only two negroes defending this garrison. They will not fight, nor will we."

"Won't you take the flag down?"

"No!"

Chad lifted his cap and wheeled. The Colonel was watching at the gate.

"Well, sir" he asked, frowning.

"I shall need help, sir, to take that flag down," said Chad.

"What do you mean, sir?"

"A woman is defending it."

"What!" shouted the Colonel.

"That is my sister, Colonel," said Harry Dean. The Colonel smiled and then grew grave.

"You should warn her not to provoke the authorities. The Government is advising very strict measures now with rebel sympathizers." Then he smiled again.

"Fours! Left wheel! Halt! Present-sabres!"

A line of sabres flashed in the sun, and Margaret, not understanding, s.n.a.t.c.hed the flag from the fence and waved it back in answer. The Colonel laughed aloud. The column moved on, and each captain, following, caught the humor of the situation and each company flashed its sabres as it went by, while Margaret stood motionless.

In the rear rode those two unarmed prisoners. She could see now that their uniforms were gray and she knew that they were prisoners, but she little dreamed that they were her brother Dan and Rebel Jerry Dillon, nor did Chad Buford or Harry Dean dream of the purpose for which, just at that time, they were being brought back to Lexington. Perhaps one man who saw them did know: for Jerome Conners, from the woods opposite, watched the prisoners ride by with a malicious smile that nothing but impending danger to an enemy could ever bring to his face; and with the same smile he watched Margaret go slowly back to the house, while her flag still fluttered from the stile.

The high tide of Confederate hopes was fast receding now. The army of the Potomac, after Antietam, which overthrew the first Confederate aggressive campaign at the East, was retreating into its Southern stronghold, as was the army of the West after Bragg's abandonment of Mumfordsville, and the rebel retirement had given the provost-marshals in Kentucky full sway. Two hundred Southern sympathizers, under arrest, had been sent into exile north of the Ohio, and large sums of money were levied for guerilla outrages here and there-a heavy sum falling on Major Buford for a vicious murder done in his neighborhood by Daws Dillon and his band on the night of the capture of Daniel Dean and Rebel Jerry. The Major paid the levy with the first mortgage he had ever given in his life, and straightway Jerome Conners, who had been dealing in mules and other Government supplies, took an att.i.tude that was little short of insolence toward his old master, whose farm was pa.s.sing into the overseer's clutches at last. Only two nights before, another band of guerillas had burned a farm-house, killed a Unionist, and fled to the hills before the incoming Yankees, and the Kentucky Commandant had sworn vengeance after the old Mosaic way on victims already within his power.

That night Chad and Harry were summoned before General Ward. They found him seated with his chin in his hand, looking out the window at the moonlit campus. Without moving, he held out a dirty piece of paper to Chad.

"Read that," he said.

"YOU HAVE KETCHED TWO OF MY MEN AND I HEAR AS HOW YOU MEAN TO HANG 'EM. IF YOU HANG THEM TWO MEN, I'M A-GOIN' TO HANG EVERY MAN OF YOURS I CAN GIT MY HANDS ON.

"DAWS DILLON-Captain."

Chad gave a low laugh and Harry smiled, but the General kept grave.

"You know, of course, that your brother belongs to Morgan's command?"

"I do, sir," said Harry, wonderingly.

"Do you know that his companion-the man Dillon-Jerry Dillon-does?"

"I do not, sir."

"They were captured by a squad that was fighting Daws Dillon. This Jerry Dillon has the same name and you found the two together at General Dean's."

"But they had both just left General Morgan's command," said Harry, indignantly.

"That may be true, but this Daws Dillon has sent a similar message to the Commandant, and he has just been in here again and committed two wanton outrages night before last. The Commandant is enraged and has issued orders for stern retaliation."

"It's a trick of Daws Dillon," said Chad, hotly, "an infamous trick. He hates his Cousin Jerry, he hates me, and he hates the Deans, because they were friends of mine." General Ward looked troubled.

"The Commandant says he has been positively informed that both the men joined Daws Dillon in the fight that night. He has issued orders that not only every guerilla captured shall be hung, but that, whenever a Union citizen has been killed by one of them, four of such marauders are to be taken to the spot and shot in retaliation. It is the only means left, he says."

There was a long silence. The faces of both the lads had turned white as each saw the drift of the General's meaning, and Harry strode forward to his desk.

"Do you mean to say, General Ward-"

The General wheeled in his chair and pointed silently to an order that lay on the desk, and as Harry started to read it, his voice broke. Daniel Dean and Rebel Jerry were to be shot next morning at sunrise.

The General spoke very kindly to Harry.

"I have known this all day, but I did not wish to tell you until I had done everything I could. I did not think it would be necessary to tell you at all, for I thought there would be no trouble. I telegraphed the Commandant, but"-he turned again to the window-"I have not been able to get them a trial by court-martial, or even a stay in the execution. You'd better go see your brother-he knows now-and you'd better send word to your mother and sister."

Harry shook his head. His face was so drawn and ghastly as he stood leaning heavily against the table that Chad moved unconsciously to his side.

"Where is the Commandant?" he asked.

"In Frankfort," said the General. Chad's eyes kindled.

"Will you let me go see him to-night?"

"Certainly, and I will give you a message to him. Perhaps you can yet save the boy, but there is no chance for the man Dillon." The General took up a pen. Harry seemed to sway as he turned to go, and Chad put one arm around him and went with him to the door.

"There have been some surprising desertions from the Confederate ranks," said the General, as he wrote. "That's the trouble." he looked at his watch as he handed the message over his shoulder to Chad. "You have ten hours before sunrise and it is nearly sixty miles there and back If you are not here with a stay of execution both will be shot. Do you think that you can make it? Of course you need not bring the message back yourself. You can get the Commandant to telegraph-" The slam of a door interrupted him-Chad was gone.

Harry was holding Dixie's bridle when he reached the street and Chad swung into the saddle.

"Don't tell them at home," he said. "I'll be back here on time, or I'll be dead."

The two grasped hands. Harry nodded dumbly and Dixie's feet beat the rhythm of her matchless gallop down the quiet street. The sensitive little mare seemed to catch at once the spirit of her rider. Her haunches quivered. She tossed her head and champed her bit, but not a pound did she pull as she settled into an easy lope that told how well she knew that the ride before her was long and hard. Out they went past the old cemetery, past the shaft to Clay rising from it, silvered with moonlight, out where the picket fires gleamed and converging on toward the Capital, unchallenged for the moon showed the blue of Chad's uniform and his face gave sign that no trivial business, that night, was his. Over quiet fields and into the aisles of sleeping woods beat that musical rhythm ceaselessly, awakening drowsy birds by the wayside, making bridges thunder, beating on and on up hill and down until picket fires shone on the hills that guard the Capital. Through them, with but one challenge, Chad went, down the big hill, past the Armory, and into the town-pulling panting Dixie up before a wondering sentinel who guarded the Commandant's sleeping quarters.

"The Commandant is asleep."

"Wake him up," said Chad, sharply. A staff-officer appeared at the door in answer to the sentinel's knock.

"What is your business?"

"A message from General Ward."