"I--I couldn't help it, darling; because, you see, I hadn't any powder
left; and I was coming through the woods--just as I told you--when the
Yanks got sight of me." He smiled down at her bravely, striving to add a
dash of comedy to his tragic plight. "And I tell you, Virgie, your old
dad had to run like a turkey--wishing to the Lord he had wings, too."

Virgie did not smile in turn, and her father dropped back into his
former tone, his pale lips setting in a straight, hard line.

"And then--the blue boy I was telling you about--when he shot at me, I
must have stumbled, because, when I scrambled up, I--I couldn't see just
right; so I ran and ran, thinking of you, darling, and wanting to get to
you before--well, before it was breakfast time. I had your bundle in my
pocket; but when I fell--why, Virgie, don't you see?--I--I couldn't go
back and find it." He paused to choke, then spoke between his teeth, in
fury at a strength which had failed to breast a barrier of fate: "But I
_would_ have gone back, if I'd had any powder left. I _would_ have! I
would!"

A pitiful apology it was, from a man to a little child; a story told
only in its hundredth part, for why should he give its untold horrors to
a baby's ears? How could she understand that man-hunt in the early dawn?
The fugitive--with an empty pistol on his hip--wading swamps and
plunging through the tangled underbrush; alert and listening, darting
from tree to tree where the woods were thin; crouching behind some
fallen log to catch his laboring breath, then rising again to creep
along his way. He did not tell of the racking pain in his weary legs,
nor the protest of his pounding heart--the strain--the agony--the puffs
of smoke that floated above the pines, and the ping of bullets whining
through the trees. He did not tell of the ball that slid along his ribs,