"No, suh--no, suh--'deed I ain't, suh--no mo'."

Mounted, the captain dropped a three-cent silver piece in the startled
negro's hand. Then he vouchsafed the wondering Flitter Bill and the
gaping crowd a military salute and started for the yawning mouth of the
Gap--riding with shoulders squared and chin well in--riding as should
ride the commander of the Army of the Callahan.

Flitter Bill dropped his blinking eyes to the paper in his hand that
bore the commission of Jefferson Davis and the Confederate States of
America to Mayhall Wells of Callahan, and went back into his store. He
looked at it a long time and then he laughed, but without much mirth.



II

Grass had little chance to grow for three weeks thereafter under the
cowhide boots of Captain Mayhall Wells. When the twentieth morning came
over the hills, the mist parted over the Stars and Bars floating from
the top of a tall poplar up through the Gap and flaunting brave defiance
to Black Tom, his Harlan Home Guard, and all other jay-hawking Unionists
of the Kentucky hills. It parted over the Army of the Callahan asleep on
its arms in the mouth of the chasm, over Flitter Bill sitting, sullen
and dejected, on the stoop of his store; and over Tallow Dick stealing
corn bread from the kitchen to make ready for flight that night through
the Gap, the mountains, and to the yellow river that was the Mecca of
the runaway slave.

At the mouth of the Gap a ragged private stood before a ragged tent,