The sergeant ordered one man to stay at the front door and another at the rear, “and permit nobody to leave the house.” Then he called the servant, a negro woman, who had opened the door, and ordered her to show the way through the rooms. Accustomed to obedience, the woman did as she was told, her mistress being so overcome with rage that she did not endeavor to exercise her authority over the servant.
Jack had told the sergeant that the flag was hidden between the sheets of a bed in the first sleeping-room at the head of the stairs; consequently that was the room which the sergeant intimated he would like to see first.
The room was found and so was the bed, but no flag. The bed showed signs of very recent disturbance, as though something had been withdrawn from it. Evidently the flag had been taken away during the parley at the door. The room was searched in every part, but no sign of the flag was found; then other rooms were examined, but with the same result.
The soldiers went through the entire house, the sergeant giving them strict orders to search everywhere, but at the same time to injure nothing. Just as they were about to give up the enterprise as a bad job, a brilliant thought occurred to Jack.
He mounted the stairs again and went straight to the bed which had first been the object of their examination. Pulling down the bed-clothes, which had been left in a disordered condition after the investigation of the soldiers, he found the desired flag and bore it in triumph to the sergeant.
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Then the sergeant withdrew his men, after again apologizing to the mistress of the house, who was so angry that she could not, or would not, speak. On the way back to camp the sergeant asked Jack how it was he knew the flag was where he found it.