It was an hour by sun now.  Lieutenant Boggs and his devoted band of ten were making their way slowly and watchfully up the mighty chasm—­the lieutenant with his hand on his sword and his head bare, and bowed in thought.  The Kentuckians were on their way—­at that moment they might be riding full speed toward the mouth of Pigeon, where floated the flag.  They might gobble him and his command up when they emerged from the Gap.  Suppose they caught him up that tree.  His command might escape, but he would be up there, saving them the trouble of stringing him up.  All they would have to do would be to send up after him a man with a rope, and let him drop.  That was enough.  Lieutenant Boggs called a halt and explained the real purpose of the expedition.

“We will wait here till dark,” he said, “so them Kanetuckians can’t ketch us, whilst we are climbing that tree.”

And so they waited opposite Bee Rock, which was making ready to blossom with purple rhododendrons.  And the reserve back in the Gap, under Lieutenant Skaggs, waited.  Waited, too, the Army of the Callahan at the mouth of the Gap, and waited restlessly Captain Wells at the door of his tent, and Flitter Bill on the stoop of his store—­waited everybody but Tallow Dick, who, in the general confusion, was slipping through the rhododendrons along the bank of Roaring Fork, until he could climb the mountain-side and slip through the Gap high over the army’s head.

What could have happened?

When dusk was falling, Captain Wells dispatched a messenger to Lieutenant Skaggs and his reserve, and got an answer; Lieutenant Skaggs feared that Boggs had been captured without the firing of a single shot—­but the flag was floating still.  An hour later, Lieutenant Skaggs sent another message—­he could not see the flag.  Captain Wells answered, stoutly: 

“Hold yo’ own.”

And so, as darkness fell, the Army of the Callahan waited in the strain of mortal expectancy as one man; and Flitter Bill waited, with his horse standing saddled in the barn, ready for swift flight.  And, as darkness fell, Tallow Dick was cautiously picking his way alongside the steep wall of the Gap toward freedom, and picking it with stealthy caution, foot by foot; for up there, to this day, big loose rocks mount halfway to the jagged points of the black cliffs, and a careless step would have detached one and sent an avalanche of rumbling stones down to betray him.  A single shot rang suddenly out far up through the Gap, and the startled negro sprang forward, slipped, and, with a low, frightened oath, lay still.  Another shot followed, and another.  Then a hoarse murmur rose, loudened into thunder, and ended in a frightful—­boom!  One yell rang from the army’s throat: 

“The Kentuckians!  The Kentuckians!  The wild, long-haired, terrible Kentuckians!”

Captain Wells sprang into the air.

“My God, they’ve got a cannon!”

Then there was a martial chorus—­the crack of rifle, the hoarse cough of horse-pistol, the roar of old muskets.