“I live up by Bethlehem, New Hampshire,” he remarked, “and if you ever come that way, I hope you'll look me up; my name's Moriarty.”
“Your name's Moriarty, I shall remember,” repeated Dan, trying, with a terrible effort, to steady his quivering limbs.
“Jim Moriarty, don't you forget it. Anybody at Bethlehem can tell you about me; I keep the biggest store around there.” He went off a few steps and then came back to hold out an awkward hand in which there was a little heap of silver.
“You'd just better take this to start you on your way,” he said, “it ain't but ninety-five cents—I couldn't make out the dollar—and when you get it in again you can send it to Jim Moriarty at Bethlehem, New Hampshire. Good-by, and good luck to you this time.”
He strode off across the field, and Dan, with the silver held close in his palm, flung himself back upon the ground and slept until Pinetop woke him with a grasp upon his shoulder.
“Marse Robert's passin' along the road,” he said. “You'd better hurry.”
Struggling to his feet Dan rushed from the woods across the deserted field, to the lines of conquered soldiers standing in battle ranks upon the roadside. Between them the Commander had passed slowly on his dapple gray horse, and when Dan joined the ranks it was only in time to see him ride onward at a walk, with the bearded soldiers clinging like children to his stirrups. A group of Federal cavalrymen, drawn up beneath a persimmon tree, uncovered as he went by, and he returned the salute with a simple gesture. Lonely, patient, confirmed in courtesy, he passed on his way, and his little army returned to camp in the strip of pines.
“'I've done my best for you,' that's what he said,” sobbed Pinetop. “'I've done my best for you,'—and I kissed old Traveller's mane.”
Without replying, Dan went back into the woods and flung himself down on the spread of tags. Now that the fight was over all the exhaustion of the last four years, the weakness after many battles, the weariness after the long marches, had gathered with accumulated strength for the final overthrow.
For three days he remained in camp in the pine woods, and on the third, after waiting six hours in a hard rain outside his General's tent, he secured the little printed slip which signified to all whom it might concern that he had become a prisoner upon his parole. Then, after a sympathetic word to the rest of the division, shivering beneath the sassafras bushes before the tent, he shook hands with his comrades under arms, and started with Pinetop down the muddy road. The war was over, and footsore, in rags and with aching limbs, he was returning to the little valley where he had hoped to trail his glory.