"Yes," I replied. "What's up?"
"We have a prisoner here who wishes to go through the lines, but I don't know whether you will permit her or not."
"Is she fair?" I asked. "For in that case she shall not pass unless she gives us a smile by way of tribute as she rides by."
"Not even if George Washington so orders, sir," said a voice that I knew.
"By the saints, my lady!" I cried, and I was by her side in an instant. "What brings you here, and why are you going within the English lines?"
"Should not a daughter be with her father?" she asked.
"But those bloody English, with all their fine trappings and their feathers! Nay, my lady, you have been disrespectful to the Continental Congress, as I can vouch for. You are our prisoner, and I will not let you escape thus, to smile on the wearers of his Majesty's uniform."
But she laughed quite merrily, and answered my threat with "Lieutenant Ringgold, pray ride on with the flag of truce."
"Dick Ringgold," I cried in my turn, "if you take less than ten minutes I shall be your deadly enemy for life."
"All right, old fellow." Dick rode on toward the enemy's campfire with the bugler until he had gone about half the way, and then we heard the parley sounded and saw a stir in the opposite camp.