Some miles farther on, when the pickets had been passed, a man on a black
horse rode suddenly from a little thicket and stopped across their path.
"You fellows haven't been such darn fools as to give your parole, have
you?" he asked in an angry voice, his hand on his horse's neck. "The fight
isn't over yet and we want your muskets on our side. I belong to the
partisan rangers, and we'll cut through to Johnston's army before daylight.
If not, we'll take to the mountains and keep up the war forever. The
country is ours, what's to hinder us?"
He spoke passionately, and at each sharp exclamation the black horse rose
on his haunches and pawed the air.
Dan shook his head.
"I'm out on parole," he replied, "but as soon as I'm exchanged, I'll fight
if Virginia wants me. How about you, Pinetop?"
The mountaineer shuffled his feet in the mud and stood solemnly surveying
the landscape.
"Wall, I don't understand much about this here parole business," he
replied. "It seems to me that a slip of paper with printed words on it that
I have to spell out as I go, is a mighty poor way to keep a man from
fightin' if he can find a musket. I ain't steddyin' about this parole, but
Marse Robert told me to go home to plant my crop, and I am goin' home to
plant it."
"It is all over, I think," said Dan with a quivering lip, as he stared at
the ruined meadows. The smart was still fresh, and it was too soon for him
to add, with the knowledge that would come to him from years,--"it is
better so.
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