“I—I don’t understand it, suh,” said the captain.
Dad nodded toward the troopers.
“There doesn’t seem much mystery about it,” he said. “Both of my horses up there are too tired to go much above a walk. Even if I could get to one of them, your men would overhaul me before I’d ridden fifty feet. And your men are between me and the only cover I could hide in if I should try to get away on foot.”
“My men?” repeated the captain dully. “Oh, yes! My men. I’d forgotten.”
Rousing himself by strong effort from the inertia due to exhaustion and pain, he turned toward the troopers.
“Fauquier!” he drawled.
A corporal saluted.
“Go back to camp and have a stretcher brought here for me. I’m hurt. Take the men with you. ’Tention! Threes about! Wheel! Trot!”
Obedient, if still wondering, the perfectly disciplined Southern cavalrymen wheeled and trotted off in double rank of threes along the path and its bush-encroaching sides.
“Suh,” continued the captain, turning back to Dad, “you seem to have a singularly queer opinion of a Virginia officer’s sense of decency. May I correct it by suggesting you mount one of those two horses up yonder and get well out of the way before my men come back? Good day, sir.