Jerry Dangerfield, seated upon her horse on a slight rise under a clump of trees a little way back from the stream, coolly munched a cracker and sipped coffee from a tincup. Ardmore, again calm, now that Daubenspeck had been spurred to action, smoked his pipe and watched the army prepare to advance.
Beyond the creek, and somewhat removed from it on the South Carolina side, a rifle cracked, and far against the blue arch a huge, black, languorous object, rising with a last supreme effort, as though to claim refuge of heaven, fell clawing at space with sprawling wings, then collapsed and pitched earthward until the trees on the farther shore hid it from sight. A feeble cheer rose in the distance.
"They sound pretty tame over there," remarked Ardmore critically. "There's no ginger in that cheer."
"The ginger," suggested Colonel Daubenspeck ironically, "is probably all in their stomachs."
One gun from the battery was brought down and placed on a slight eminence to support the advance, for which all was now in readiness. The bugle sang again, and the men of one company sprang forward and began leaping from rock to rock, silently, steadily moving upon the farther shore. Here and there some brown khaki-clad figure slipped and splashed into the stream with a wild confusion of brown leggings; but on they went intrepidly. The captain, leading his men through the torrent, was first to gain the southern shore. He waved his sword, and with a shout his men clambered up the bank and formed in neat alignment. This was hardly accomplished before a uniformed figure dashed from a neighboring blackberry thicket and waved a white handkerchief. He bore something in his hand, which to Ardmore's straining vision seemed to be a small wicker basket.
"It's a flag of truce!" exclaimed Colonel Daubenspeck, and a sigh that expressed incontestable relief broke from that officer.
"The cowards!" cried Ardmore. "Does that mean they won't fight?"
"It means that hostilities must cease until we have permitted the bearer of the flag to carry his message into our lines."
The man with the basket was already crossing the creek in charge of a corporal.
"I have read somewhere about being careful of the Greeks bearing gifts," said Jerry. "There may be something annoying in that basket."