Renfrew the Silent was waiting at the smouldering fire. He neither looked up nor made any comment when General Hunt spoke his determination. His own face grew more sullen and he reached his hand into his breast and pulled from his faded jacket the tattered colors that he once had borne.
"These will never be lowered as long as I live," he said, "nor afterwards if Ican prevent it." And lowered they never were. On a little island in the Pacific Ocean, this strange soldier, after leaving his property and his kindred forever, lived out his life among the natives with this bloodstained remnant of the Stars and Bars over his hut, and when he died, the flag was hung over his grave, and above that grave to-day the tattered emblem still sways in southern air.
. . . . . .
A week earlier, two Rebels and two Yankees started across the mountain together--Chad and Dan and the giant Dillon twins--Chad and Yankee Jake afoot.
Up Lonesome they went toward the shaggy flank of Black Mountain where the Great Reaper had mowed down Chad's first friends. The logs of the cabin were still standing, though the roof was caved in and the yard was a tangle of undergrowth. A dull pain settled in Chad's breast, while he looked, and as they were climbing the spur, he choked when he caught sight of the graves under the big poplar.
There was the little pen that he had built over his foster-mother's grave--still undisturbed. He said nothing and, as they went down the spur, across the river and up Pine Mountain, he kept his gnawing memories to himself. Only ten years before, and he seemed an old, old man now. He recognized the very spot where he had slept the first night after he ran away and awakened to that fearful never-forgotten storm at sunrise, which lived in his memory now as a mighty portent of the storms of human passion that had swept around him on many a battlefield. There was the very tree where he had killed the squirrel and the rattlesnake. It was bursting spring now, but the buds of laurel and rhododendron were unbroken. Down Kingdom Come they went.
Here was where he had met the old cow, and here was the little hill where Jack had fought Whizzer and he had fought Tad Dillon and where he had first seen Melissa. Again the scarlet of her tattered gown flashed before his eyes. At the bend of the river they parted from the giant twins. Faithful Jake's face was foolish when Chad took him by the hand and spoke to him, as man to man, and Rebel Jerry turned his face quickly when Dan told him that he would never forget him, and made him promise to come to see him, if Jerry ever took another raft down to the capital. Looking back from the hill, Chad saw them slowly moving along a path toward the woods--not looking at each other and speaking not at all.
Beyond rose the smoke of the old Turner cabin. On the porch sat the old Turner mother, her bonnet in her hand, her eyes looking down the river. Dozing at her feet was Jack--old Jack. She had never forgiven Chad, and she could not forgive him now, though Chad saw her eyes soften when she looked at the tattered butternut that Dan wore. But Jack--half-blind and aged--sprang trembling to his feet when he heard Chad's voice and whimpered like a child.
Chad sank on the porch with one arm about the old dog's neck. Mother Turner answered all questions shortly.
Melissa had gone to the "Settlemints." Why? The old woman would not answer.
She was coming back, but she was ill. She had never been well since she went afoot, one cold night, to warn some YANKEE that Daws Dillon was after him.
Chad started. It was Melissa who had perhaps saved his life. Tad Dillon had stepped into Daws's shoes, and the war was still going on in the hills. Tom Turner had died in prison. The old mother was waiting for Dolph and Rube to come back--she was looking for them every hour, day and night She did not know what had become of the school-master--but Chad did, and he told her. The school-master had died, storming breastworks at Gettysburg. The old woman said not a word.
Dan was too weak to ride now. So Chad got Dave Hilton, Melissa's old sweetheart, to take Dixie to Richmond--a little Kentucky town on the edge of the Bluegrass--and leave her there and he bought the old Turner canoe. She would have no use for it, Mother Turner said--he could have it for nothing;but when Chad thrust a ten dollar Federal bill into her hands, she broke down and threw her arms around him and cried.
So down the river went Chad and Dan--drifting with the tide--Chad in the stern, Dan lying at full length, with his head on a blue army-coat and looking up at the over-swung branches and the sky and the clouds above them--down, through a mist of memories for Chad--down to the capital.
And Harry Dean, too, was on his way home--coming up from the far South--up through the ravaged land of his own people, past homes and fields which his own hands had helped to lay waste.
