“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, snatched 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 attitude that was little short of insolence toward his old master, whose farm was passing 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.