“He did know and so did I—­later.  All that is over now.”

They had reached the stone wall and Chad picked up the flag again.

“This is the only time I have ever carried this flag, unless I—­unless it had been captured.”

“You had captured it, Chad.”

“There?” Chad pointed to the stile and Margaret nodded.

“There—­here everywhere.”

Seated on the porch, Mrs. Dean and Harry and Dan saw them coming across the field and Mrs. Dean sighed.

“Father would not say a word against it, mother,” said the elder boy, “if he were here.”

“No,” said Dan, “not a word.”

“Listen, mother,” said Harry, and he told the two about Chad’s ride for Dan from Frankfort to Lexington.  “He asked me not to tell.  He did not wish Margaret to know.  And listen again, mother.  In a skirmish one day we were fighting hand to hand.  I saw one man with his pistol levelled at me and another with his sabre lifted on Chad.  He saw them both.  My pistol was empty, and do you know what he did?  He shot the man who was about to shoot me instead of his own assailant.  That is how he got that scar.  I did tell Margaret that.”

“Yes, you must go down in the mountain first,” Margaret was saying, “and see if there is anything you can do for the people who were so good to you—­and to see Melissa.  I am worried about her.”

“And then I must come back to you?”

“Yes, you must come back to see me once more if you can.  And then some day you will come again and buy back the Major’s farm” —­ she stopped, blushing.  “I think that was his wish Chad, that you and I—­but I would never let him say it.”

“And if that should take too long?”

“I will come to you, Chad,” said Margaret.

Old Mammy came out on the porch as they were climbing the stile.

“Ole Miss,” she said, indignantly, “my Tom say that he can’t get nary a triflin’ nigger to come out hyeh to wuk, an’ ef that cawnfiel’ ain’t ploughed mighty soon, it’s gwine to bu’n up.”

“How many horses are there on the place, Mammy?” asked Dan.

“Hosses!” sniffed the old woman.  “They ain’t nary a hoss—­nothin’ but two ole broken-down mules.”

“Well, I’ll take one and start a plough myself,” said Harry.

“And I’ll take the other,” said Dan.

Mammy groaned.

. . . . . .

And still the wonder of that night to Chad and Margaret!

“It was General Hunt who taught me to understand—­and forgive.  Do you know what he said?  That every man, on both sides, was right—­who did his duty.”

“God bless him,” said Chad.

CHAPTER 31.  THE WESTWARD WAY